Charles Spencer (journalist)

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Charles Spencer (born 4 March 1955) is a British journalist. He was the chief drama critic of The Daily Telegraph from 1991 to 2014, having joined the paper in 1988. On 1 September 2014, it was announced that he had decided to take early retirement, and his final review for the paper appeared on the same day. [1]

He was educated at Charterhouse and Balliol College, Oxford. He began his career in journalism at the Surrey Advertiser , and subsequently wrote for the London Evening Standard , The Stage and Television Today, before joining the Telegraph. He won "Critic of the Year" in the 1999 British Press Awards. He has written three crime novels: I Nearly Died (1994), Full Personal Service (1996) and Under the Influence (2000). [2]

In 2006, Compton Miller of The Independent wrote in a profile: "This convivial ex-alcoholic is best remembered for his description of Nicole Kidman's nude scene in The Blue Room as 'pure theatrical Viagra'." [3]

In a review published in The Daily Telegraph on 6 September 2012, he revealed that the reason for his absence from the paper's pages for the previous three months was that he had been suffering from clinical depression. [4]

Charles Spencer is descended from several generations of noted early aeronauts. [5] His great-grandfather, Percival G. Spencer, made the first successful balloon flight in India, and Charles' third great-grandfather Edward Spencer helped to conduct an unsuccessful parachute jump from a balloon over Vauxhall Gardens in London in July 1837. [6]

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