'The Hazlitt of our time', said the Manchester Guardian, announcing the death of James Agate in 1947. An extravagant compliment, but the famous theatre reviewer did have one or two of Hazlitt's characteristics. Though his journalism now seems too pompous-frivolous even for the theatre world, his reports of actors' performances are often vivid and persuasive: he was quite learned in his subject and could communicate his own enthusiasm, making drama seem important - more important, perhaps, than it seems to us today. He was shamelessly egotistic and his self-importance attracted readers to the theatrical excitements he publicised. In his autobiographical Ego books he was less candid than Hazlitt was, but then he risked imprisonment. James Harding reveals Agate as a reckless hunter after unlawful pleasures. It is a dismal tale, but James Harding tells it cheerfully. He calls Agate 'an English Baron de Charlus' - which seems almost as extravagant as 'the Hazlitt of our time'.

LRB 5 June 1986 | PDF Download