William Aubrey Cecil Darlington or W.A. Darlington (1890–1979), was a British writer and journalist who worked for many years as the
drama critic
A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as art, literature, music, cinema, theater, fashion, architecture, and food. Critics may also take as their subject social or governme ...
of the ''
Daily Telegraph'' newspaper.
Life and career
Darlington was primarily a journalist, working as a drama critic for the
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
and
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
.
Darlington also wrote novels, most successfully with his 1920 comic work ''
Alf's Button'' which was adapted into several films.
[Low p.111] He wrote an autobiography, ''I Do What I Like''.
He was educated at
Shrewsbury School
Shrewsbury School is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 13 –18) in Shrewsbury.
Founded in 1552 by Edward VI by Royal Charter, it was originally a boarding school for boys; girls have been admitted into ...
and
St John’s, Cambridge, before joining the army during the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
.
Works
* ''Alf's Button'' (1920)
* ''Egbert'' (1925)
* ''Carpet Slippers'' (1931)
* ''I Do What I Like'' (MacDonald, 1947)
* ''The World of Gilbert and Sullivan'' (1950)
* ''Six Thousand and One Nights: Forty Years a Drama Critic'' (1960)
References
Further reading
* Low, Rachael ''The History of the British Film, 1918–1929'' George Allen & Unwin, 1971
External links
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1890 births
1979 deaths
British theatre critics
20th-century British novelists
People from Taunton
The Daily Telegraph people
British male novelists
Presidents of the Critics' Circle
20th-century English businesspeople
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