In a shocking attack, the ballet director Marco Goecke smeared dog excrement in the face of Wiebke Hüster in retaliation for her review. Yet it isn’t the first time an artist has assaulted a critic. Our writers share their worst moments
I was biffed on the head by David Storey in 1976 after describing his play Mother’s Day as “a stinker”. But that rankled less than sustained verbal assaults by Jonathan Miller late in his career. He once sent me a New Year’s Day card urging me to cease my “foul pork scratchings” and told an interviewer that ideally directors should be reviewed by their peers rather than “nonentities like Michael Billington”. Better a Storey thump than a Miller moan. Michael Billington
