Bio
Me with a duck I met in Edinburgh
I have two hats: the green-tinted visor of an editorial professional and the rakish beret of an arts enthusiast. I often wear both at once. Sometimes this makes me look silly, but sometimes the two hats fuse together, forming the magnificent fedora of an arts journalist.
If you’ve heard of me, it was probably in connection with The Matt Boothman Song, a scathing satirical ditty penned by Arran Glass of The Glass Band after I wrote in a review that he couldn’t sing (incidentally the best bit of publicity I’ve ever received). If that’s why you’re here, you can listen to The Matt Boothman Song to your heart’s content using the player below:
Character assassination aside, I am a young multimedia journalist, based in south London and covering alternative arts and culture. I specialise in fringe and off-West End theatre reviews, with a particular passion for site-sensitive, participatory, audio-guided or otherwise innovative performance.
I studied theatre criticism under Variety theatre critic and Guardian blogger Karen Fricker as part of a Drama and Creative Writing degree at Royal Holloway, University of London. By the time I graduated – with First Class Honours – in July of 2008, I was already reviewing London shows semi-professionally (that is, entirely at my own expense) for Andrew Eglinton‘s London Theatre Blog.
Those first few reviews for the London Theatre Blog were enough to land me my first paid freelance work, reviewing plays at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe for Commissioning Editor Allan Radcliffe at The List. Short stints at Remote Goat and the Maidenhead Advertiser followed, but since November 2008 the majority of my reviews have been published in the British Theatre Guide (commissioned by London editor Philip Fisher).
In the lead-up to the 2009 Edinburgh Festival Fringe – which I covered for The List, the London Theatre Blog, the British Theatre Guide and the Oxford Times – I was invited to begin contributing features to media and entertainment hub t5m (The 5th Medium). t5m was later rebranded as The Collective Review, and I began cross-posting many of my British Theatre Guide reviews to the site to gain greater exposure.
In November 2009 I added audiovisual journalism to my repertoire, starting with the Plus One Podcast (which I created, recorded, edited and hosted myself) and using this to prove my worth to theatreVOICE‘s Aleks Sierz.
In April 2009 I started a full-time job, and unfortunately I no longer have time to pursue journalism either as a career or a pastime. This blog is now dormant, with only occasional experimental updates.
I also tweet. Follow me here: @MattBoothman.
