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January 30, 2011

If there’s one thing you learn by going regularly to the Mint Theater, which specializes in forgotten dramas, it’s that the world has changed less than you think.

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January 27, 2011

The key character in "What the Public Wants" is a driven media tycoon who reaches millions via dozens of publications. Through them, he seeks to entertain the many and influence the mighty.

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Associated Press
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Jennifer
Farrar

January 27, 2011

For those not acquainted with the phrase "yellow journalism," it refers to sensationalizing the news with overly dramatic headlines intended to grab readers and sell the most papers. That’s the subject of "What The Public Wants," a comedy by Arnold Bennett that satirizes tabloid journalism in 1906 London. The play opened Thursday night at the Mint Theater in a witty, well-acted production; director Matthew Arbour is faithful to the original material, which is clever and surprisingly contemporary more than a hundred years after Bennett wrote it.

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January 31, 2011

Jonathan Bank has given a foster home to Arnold Bennett’s 1909 play What the Public Wants at the Mint Theatre. And as directed superbly by Matthew Arbour and designed by Roger Hanna, what a welcome new resident it is as it goes about skewering a publishing mogul who may put today’s audiences in mind of someone like Rupert Murdoch.

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Erik
Haagensen

January 27, 2011

According to a press release, Arnold Bennett’s 1909 comedy about London tabloid journalism, though obscure here in America, has been revived numerous times in England, always to huzzahs for how topical it remains. Alas, Mint Theater Company’s strained production reveals just the opposite. Time has long since passed by this artificial broadside against the evils of indulging the people’s "low" taste. Indeed, in the age of the Internet, when the public can self-satisfy its hungers through tweets, blogs, videos, and chat rooms, "What the Public Wants" seems positively irrelevant.

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