Critics have been at large at The New Yorker since the magazine was founded. The first issue, published in 1925, featured reviews of theatre, music, and books, including a new novel by Aldous Huxley. Pauline Kael, in her tenure as a New Yorker film critic, famously defended “Bonnie and Clyde” and opined passionately on “A Clockwork Orange.” Brendan Gill, who wrote about theatre, books, and architecture for more than sixty years, was described by John Updike as “avidly alert to the power of art in general.”
Now the magazine is bringing its storied critics section to a new form: the podcast. On Critics at Large, a weekly arts-and-culture show, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz come together to discuss everything from classic texts to new obsessions. In lively and incisive conversations, the critics exchange hot takes and long-simmering theories. Analyzing books, film, theatre, television, and pop culture, the show makes thematic connections across genre, medium, and history—from Salman Rushdie to “The Real Housewives”—to help the culturally curious make sense of the art of today.
Listen to the trailer and follow Critics at Large wherever you listen.
Cunningham, who joined The New Yorker in 2016, writes about theatre, books, comedy, sports, and more. He recently profiled the playwright Jeremy O. Harris, whose “Slave Play” was widely lauded, and reviewed a new production of “Hamlet” in Central Park. Fry, a scholar of celebrity culture and high art alike, joined the magazine in 2018. She has written about “Succession,” the fashion-world provocateur Philipp Plein, and the trial of Gwyneth Paltrow. Schwartz, a staff writer since 2016, is a literary critic who also covers film, TV, and theatre. Her subjects have included the Nobel Prize-winning author Annie Ernaux, the psychotherapist-cum-TV star Orna Guralnik, and a one-man musical about Mother Teresa.
The podcast’s first two episodes, released today, draw on texts ranging from “Jane Eyre” to “The Social Network” to explain two very different, equally ubiquitous cultural phenomena. In the first, the hosts examine a trend they dub “cringecore”—an “unstable blend of scripted and reality television” that makes us feel a “trickle of revulsion.” Why are we fascinated by extremely uncomfortable situations on TV? Why do we keep coming back for more Nathan Fielder, “the godfather of cringe,” and the humiliating situations he engineers? In the second episode of Critics at Large, the trio dissects the myth-making of Elon Musk, as embodied by Walter Isaacson’s new biography of the Tesla founder. What does Isaacson say—or fail to say—about the effects of extreme power? Future episodes will go behind the scenes of blockbuster New Yorker culture coverage, revealing additional insights about the subjects and the art of reporting and criticism.
Produced by The New Yorker and Condé Nast Entertainment, Critics at Large is the seventh and most recent addition to the magazine’s slate of podcasts. The New Yorker débuted its politics podcast, The Political Scene, in late 2007, and its offerings now include the Fiction Podcast, the Poetry Podcast, and The Writer’s Voice. The New Yorker Radio Hour, hosted by the magazine’s editor, David Remnick, and co-produced by WNYC Studios, offers profiles, humor, and storytelling, and In the Dark, acquired by Condé Nast earlier this year, produces award-winning long-form audio journalism. You can listen to these shows wherever you get your podcasts.
