Christopher Tookey

{{Short description|British film critic}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

Christopher Tookey (born 9 April 1950) is an English film critic. He has written for both The Sunday Telegraph and the Daily Mail.{{cite news|title=Arts: The worst movie ever?|first=Scott |last=Hughes|newspaper=The Guardian|date=26 April 2001|page=15}}{{cite web|url=http://www.rottentomatoes.com/author/author-742/|title=Christopher Tookey|publisher=IGN Entertainment, Inc.|work=rottentomatoes.com|accessdate=30 March 2009}} He has presented the Radio 4 programmes The Film Programme and Back Row.{{cite web|url=http://www.movie-film-review.com/devlisten.asp|url-status=usurped|archive-date=7 February 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120207095012/http://www.movie-film-review.com/devlisten.asp|title=Chris Tookey presenting The Film Programme, BBC Radio 4.}} In 2013, he won the award as "Arts Reviewer of the Year" from the London Press Club.

At Oxford University he was president of the Oxford Union, Editor of Isis, President of the Etceteras and Musical Director of Oxford Theatre Group. Tookey was elected chairman of The Critics' Circle in 1995, but his bid to become vice-president floundered due to the position he took on the 1996 film Crash.{{cite news|title=Crash, there goes the censors' Berlin Wall|first=Philip |last=French|newspaper=The Observer|date=25 May 1997|pages=029}} Tookey campaigned for the film to be banned, writing that "Crash is the point at which even a liberal society should draw the line."{{cite news|title=Inside Story: In search of depravity David Cronenberg's new film, Crash, has riled the right and provoked calls for censorship|first=Dan|last=Glaister|author2=Derek Malcolm|newspaper=The Guardian|date=12 November 1996|pages=T.008}} The Observer film critic Philip French wrote that Tookey's "campaigning was thought to be in breach of the Critics' Circle's objects of promoting the art of criticism and supporting the advancement of the arts."{{cite news|title=The week in Reviews: Censorship: Crash! No, not distant thunder - just film critics dropping clangers|last=French|first=Philip|newspaper=The Observer|date=23 March 1997|pages=013}} Tookey wrote a series of critical articles for the Mail regarding the film which saw Jonathan Coe of the New Statesman describe him as "the real architect of the antiCrash campaign".{{cite magazine|title=There is no paedophilia or sexual humiliation in Crash. Neither is there any merit. But we should still defend it from the censors and moralists |first=Coe|last=Jonathan|magazine=New Statesman|date=6 June 1997|pages=38}} Tookey called for readers to boycott the products of distributor Sony, and questioned the suitability to the role of the then director of the British Board of Film Classification.{{cite news|title=Analysis: Film censorship: They know what's good for you As Lolita is passed for release Steve Busfield and Dan Glaister see how the Daily Mail wages war on Britain's censors|last=Busfield|first=Steve|author2=Dan Glaister|newspaper=The Guardian|date=March 27, 1998|page=019}} Tookey denied charges that he was in favour of blanket censorship, writing in a letter to The Guardian that he has "frequently written and spoken against censorship and jumped to the defence of films (such as Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and The Life Of Brian) which struck me as victims of unjust repression in the past."{{cite news|title=Letter: A Crash victim protests|first=Christopher|last=Tookey|date=29 November 1996|newspaper=The Guardian|pages=020}} He wrote in an article for Prospect magazine that his campaign against Crash was motivated by the fear that "Cronenberg's film might well have a "copycat effect" on a few unstable individuals" and could "also have a far more insidious longterm effect by eroticising sado-masochism and orthopaedic fetishism for people previously unaware of being turned on by acts of mutilation." Tookey was also concerned at the precedent set by releasing such a film with an 18 certificate.{{cite journal|title=Crash, ban, wallop|url=http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=4650|last=Tookey|first=Christpher |date=February 1997|journal=Prospect|issue=16|accessdate=30 March 2009}}

In 2000 Tookey directed and co-produced the musical Hard Times, based on the Charles Dickens novel of the same name, which opened to mixed reviews at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket and closed the same year.{{cite web|url=http://www.guidetomusicaltheatre.com/shows_h/hardtimes.html |title=Hard Times - The Musical - Christopher Tookey & Hugh Thomas |date=10 February 2009 |publisher=The Guide to Musical Theatre |accessdate=30 March 2009 |url-status=live |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20101010121029/http://guidetomusicaltheatre.com/shows_h/hardtimes.html |archivedate=10 October 2010 }} 30 March 2009.

Tookey also witnessed a man bleed to death from a stabbing in 1997, and his reaction troubled him: "It has brought home to me that I have seen so much violence on screen (the latest film is Crash) that I have become desensitised. Talking with the others on the street, I was noticeably less affected by the sight of this guy bleeding to death. After the killing, a number of people had nightmares. Shouldn't I have? It was my lack of reaction that was so chilling."{{cite news|title=Death of an Islington man: A curry delivery man murdered in a gang war? So much for Neighbourhood Watch|last=Sweeney|first=John|newspaper=The Observer|page=005|date=15 June 1997}}{{cite magazine|title=Sean French (column)|last=French|first=Sean|magazine=New Statesman|date=18 September 1998|pages=31}}

In August 2013 the Daily Mail decided not to renew Tookey's contract which expired on 1 December 2013.{{Cite web|url=https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/comment/goodbye-mr-french-fleet-street-cuts-back-its-film-critics|title = Goodbye Mr French: Fleet Street cuts back its film critics | Comment | Sight & Sound: The International Film Magazine| date=21 June 2018 }}