Welcome to the inaugural episode of The Critic’s new arts podcast, Critical Mash. Hosted by our opera correspondent, Robert Thicknesse, president of the Critics’ circle, along with talented and charming co-hosts Lucy Lethbridge and Yehuda Shapiro, their guests this episode are composer Elena Langer and theatre director Joe Hill-Gibbins, both of whom have helped bring problematic operatic bad boys to the stage — in the form of Langer’s Figaro Gets a Divorce and Hill-Gibbins’ new staging of Duke Bluebeard’s Castle for the ENO.

Critical Mash will be our regular, and of course, critical examination of the arts. Prepare to be amused, annoyed, entertained and informed, as a dazzling choir of dissident luminaries anoint the digital airwaves. Trigger Warning! This episode contains misogynoir, eye-gouging, heteronormativity and Bert Thicknesse.