Peter Kenna on critics

 “At that time everybody expected every Australian play to be a great Australian play, it wasn’t enough just to write a  moderate sort of play or a little fluffy comedy, every play had to be a great Australian play and there were so many critics everywhere. There were a bout three or four Australian writers at that time and there were hundreds of critics waiting to pounce on everything that they wrote. Some to say good things, some to say bad things but they sprung up like grass everywhere so that almost every single write had about fifty critics hanging off him at that stage. It was such a difficult period for writers. I know writers during that period who just gave up writing completely, they were broken. Because they’d have something done and it would be criticised out of all reason. And then of course they just stopped writing altogether and it was so difficult to get people to read plays.”

“One needed an enormous amount of stamina and hardness to go on writing when there were so many disappointments in it... There are disappointments for everyone in this business but for writers it was extremely difficult.”

Interview is here