A regular guest on BBC Radio 4's Front Row and other TV and radio arts/current affairs programmes, David Benedict is a freelance culture critic and broadcaster. He is the London theatre critic for Variety and. weekly columnist on The Stage.He was previously the arts editor of The Observer and associate arts editor/daily columnist at The Independent writing on theatre, opera, dance, film and TV. He has also reviewed and written interviews and features for the Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, Sunday Times and Wall Street Journal Europe. His magazine work includes Attitude, BBC Music Magazine, Condé Nast Traveller, Elle (USA), Esquire, New Statesman, Opera, and Prospect.He has written and presented films about Rufus Wainwright and Matthew Bourne for BBC2, was a regular guest on the BBC TV classical music series Discovering... and has been a presenter for BBC Radio 3’s Building a Library specialising in musicals and opera, and has reviewed fiction, film, TV and visual arts for BBC Radio 4. Having originally trained and worked as an actor and singer, he became artistic director of the UK's national lesbian and gay theatre company Gay Sweatshop.He is a regular guest presenter for live events at the BFI, the National Theatre and beyond and his authorised biography of Stephen Sondheim will be published by Random House (US) and Picador (UK).He plays Tristram Hawkshaw in BBC Radio 4's The Archers.