Sir, - While I appreciate the right of theatre critics to express their opinion, I do feel that they should also report the nature of the audience's collective response, especially if it differs palpably from their own view. Certainly the ovation accorded on the night I was present at Tom Kilroy's new play at the Abbey Theatre represented about 500 favourable opinions.
Attending the recent seminar on theatre criticism at UCD, it was clear to me that students and members of the public generally believed this review to have been unfair. When a member of The Irish Times staff bravely read out a favourable sentence which had been omitted from the printed text, the astonished participants were left wondering if readers are supposed to know, as if by magic, what has not been published? - Yours, etc., Christopher Fitzsimon,
Monkstown,
Co Dublin.