Theatre criticism is a quick and dirty act – our views change and so do plays

For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy at the New Diorama in 2021. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/the Guardian

I went to see a play for the second time recently and changed my mind about it. If that sounds like an innocent statement in itself, it is surely a mea culpa for a critic who delivered a damning star-rated judgment the first time around.

Or is it? The production was Ryan Calais Cameron’s For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy, which is currently at the Royal Court. I reviewed it in October 2021, when it was first mounted at the New Diorama theatre, and I was unequivocally disappointed. All the more so because I was sure I was going to like it, having been blown away by Cameron’s previous drama, Typical, streamed during lockdown. That play drew on the last day in the life of Christopher Alder, and I was so moved by its story, so exhilarated by its language, that it took me several cups of tea to calm down afterwards.