As German critic is ‘attacked with dog faeces by director’, how other artists have got revenge

It’s not always easy to face criticism, so perhaps it’s no wonder that some of these artists were keen for revenge.

Today, a German critic told of how she was left in utter shock after a furious ballet director allegedly smeared his dog Gustav’s faeces over her face after she described one of his productions as ‘boring’ and ‘disjointed’.

Journalist Wiebke Hüster, 57, said Marco Goecke, director of Hanover State Opera’s ballet company, approached her during the interval of his show on Saturday night at the opera house and ‘blocked her way’ before accusing her of ‘writing badly’. 

Hüster, a dance critic for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), said Goecke, 50, then produced a bag of dog faeces, which had been freshly produced by his Dachshund Gustav just minutes before, from his pocket and rubbed the excrement over her face in front of ‘shocked’ onlookers.

However, Hüster’s ordeal isn’t the only time an artist – or their relative – has hit out at a critic.

From a writer savaged in a £16,000 ad in their own paper to Jeanette Winterson turning up on reviewers’ doorsteps, here FEMAIL reveals how other creatives have got revenge on their critics.

German critic was ‘attacked with dog faeces by a ballet director’ 

Marco Goecke was said to be furious over Wiebke Hüster’s scathing review, published in the FAZ just before his new show premiered on Saturday, of his production ‘In the Dutch Mountain’.

The journalist had compared the production, which recently opened at Nederlands Dans Theatre in The Hague, to being ‘alternately driven mad and killed by boredom’.

A furious Goecke approached Hüster in the crowded foyer of the Hanover Opera House during the interval of his production ‘Glaube – Liebe -Hoffnung’ (Faith – Love – Hope)’ and threatened to ban her from the house and accused her of being responsible for cancelling subscriptions in Hanover.

He allegedly verbally abused her before he attacked her with the dog faeces. Hüster left the Opera House and immediately reported the alleged assault to police.

‘All of a sudden, without any warning, he just took out this doggy poo bag and smeared it into my face,’ Hüster told BBC Radio 4. 

‘As he turned around and walked away, and as I realised what had happened I screamed. I was in panic, I was completely shocked, as were the people around me. They didn’t know what to do.’

Hüster said she rushed to the toilets before leaving the Hanover Opera House to file a police report against Goecke, who is said to have taken a bow on the stage following the ballet performance ‘like nothing had happened’.

‘It was bodily harm and an insult. Marco Goecke came to me in the first interval and he blocked my way,’ Hüster said. ‘He said I should get a house ban instead of being allowed to report on this evening.’

‘I said I was just doing my job and was there to review his performance,’ Hüster said, adding that Goecke had accused her of ‘always writing so badly’.

‘And then, all of a sudden, without any warning, it was so quick, he just took out this doggy poo bag and smeared it into my face.’

She told The Daily Beast: ‘He didn’t just throw it at me. He pulled out the bag with the open side of the bag and rubbed it in my face brutally, so the dog poop would stick in my face. One moment we were still talking and the next moment his fist was in my face.’ 

Hüster said: ‘I was surrounded in this foyer by lots of people and they were watching this scene, and as he turned around and walked away, and as I realised what had happened I screamed.

‘I was in panic, I was completely shocked, as were the people around me. They didn’t know what to do. ‘

‘And then the next thing, somebody from the theatre came up to me and led me to a ladies room so that I could clean my face and I left the theatre and went to the police.’

Showing no remorse, Goecke is said to have bowed at the end of the performance ‘as if nothing had happened’.

‘As colleagues have reported to me, he bowed at the end of the performance. He went onto the stage, he waved to the audience, he acted as if nothing had happened,’ Hüster said. 

But Goecke is now being investigated by police and has been suspended from his post as chief choreographer and director and barred from the Hanover State Opera House.

Samples of the ‘dog faeces’ had not been secured by authorities, who would have to rely on eyewitness testimony as they investigated the alleged assault, a police spokeswoman said. 

In an interview with public broadcaster NDR, Goecke acknowledged that his ‘choice of means wasn’t super, absolutely’.

‘Of course socially that is also certainly not recognized or respected, if one resorts to such means,’ he said of the attack, adding that he had never done anything like that before and was ‘a bit shocked at myself’.

Goecke said that while having his work ‘soiled for years’ was a price he had been told he had to pay for being in the public eye, there was a limit. ‘Once a certain point has been reached, I disagree,’ he said.

The German journalists’ association DJV denounced the attack.

‘An artist must tolerate criticism, even if it seems exaggerated,’ the union’s regional head in Lower Saxony state, Frank Rieger, said. ‘Whoever reacts violently to criticism is unacceptable. The attack on the… journalist is also an attack on press freedom.’

The opera house apologised for the episode in a statement, adding that it was checking which steps to take against the director in accordance with labour law. It did not give details of what happened.

‘We contacted the journalist immediately after the incident and apologised to her personally and also publicly,’ Laura Berman, the opera house’s artistic director, said in a statement.

‘We very much regret that our audience has been disturbed by this incident.’

In a statement the opera house said that Goecke’s ‘impulsive behaviour’ was going against their code of conduct and left the audience, staff members and the general public ‘extremely unsettled’.

They added that his behaviour has harmed the ballet house’s reputation.

The opera house demanded an apology from Goecke and an explanation before it will give information about further steps regarding the choreographer and ballet director.

Author Jeanette Winterson turned up on reviewers’ doorsteps

English author Jeanette Winterson, 63, has previously responded to bad reviews of her books by turning up on the critics’ doorsteps to hit back at their criticisms. 

On one occasion, the Oranges are Not the Only Fruit (1985) author recalled that she had ‘that squaring-up tendency, and he was a little fella, only 5ft 2in,’ reported the Belfast Telegraph.

Another time, she turned up at the doorstep of fellow writer and critic Nicci Gerrard, who wrote a ‘mildly critical profile’ in The Observer.

Winterson, who was said to be ‘enraged’, and her then lover, Australian broadcaster and academic Peggy Reynolds, visited Gerrard late one evening, reported The Times. 

‘There they hurled abuse, leaving Gerrard, in her own words, “shaken” – a response that went far beyond spirited self-defence and verged on bullying,’ read the report.

Gerrard, who was reportedly hosting a dinner party at the time, was said to be ‘distressed’ by the incident ‘because she respects Winterson as a writer’.

‘It’s become one of those famous feuds and I really wish it hadn’t happened,’ she said, via Prospect Magazine. ‘The ghost of it lingers on and becomes hardened into an official version. 

‘I’d love to meet her now and say, look, let’s forget it – not least because it gave people the excuse to put the boot into her and I think that’s horrible.’ 

Sharon Osbourne sent her critics boxes of her children’s faeces

Sharon Osbourne, wife of rocker Ozzy, previously admitted that she had resorted to sending human faeces to those who went against her family.

She got her own children to take a dump in boxes she would send in the mail to unsuspecting victims, she claimed. 

Osbourne, 70, made the shocking admission on The Late Late Show with James Corden in 2015.

‘I don’t do them anymore because I’ve grown up and I’m a nice person, but what I used to do was I used to get one of the kids to c*** in a box and I would put it in a Tiffany box and then I would have it delivered.

‘Jack would say, “Mummy, I don’t have to poo in a box again do I?” and I would say, “Yes, shut up, keep pooing”,’ Osbourne revealed.

The TV personality insisted she hadn’t sent any of the unwelcome packages in years.

But, she said, when she did she would pull the prank on ‘many people’ as an insult.  ‘I’ve done it for an awfully long time. I suppose I find it funny.’

Tom Odell’s father called NME offices to complain about zero-star review

In 2013, musician Tom Odell’s father rang up the offices of music magazine NME to blast its writers for giving his son a rare 0 out of 10 for his album Long Way Down.

NME reviewer Mark Beaumont unleashed his full critical fury, describing the then 22-year-old singer from Chichester as a ‘poor, misguided wannabe who’s fallen into the hands of the music industry equivalent of Hungarian sex traffickers’.

He added: ‘I wish I could say there’s a place in Hell reserved for Tom Odell. There’s not. Just loads more Brits.

‘He’ll be all over 2013 like a virulent dose of musical syphilis, pounding and warbling away at every papal election and Bradley Wiggins finishing line.’

The magazine puts the boot in even further, justifying the zero grade by saying you ‘can’t unhear’ the music, reported The Independent.

Lucy Jones, the deputy editor of the magazine’s website, posted a message on Twitter saying that her staff had taken a phone call from the elder Mr Odell after the issue hit newsstands.

Actor Steven Berkoff threatened to kill a Guardian theatre critic

Steven Berkoff saw red after his starring role in a 1979 adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet was slammed by leading critic, Nicholas de Jongh.

The Guardian’s then-theatre critic described Berkoff as ‘fatally miscast’ in the titular role.

Berkoff famously decided to threaten him, face-to-face, saying he would kill the esteemed critic for what he had said.

In a more measured argument against de Jongh’s verdict, Berkoff said: ‘Since Hamlet touches the complete alphabet of human experience, every actor feels he is born to play it. 

‘The bold extrovert will dazzle and play with the word power… The introvert will see every line pointed at him, the outsider, the loner, the watcher… So you cannot be miscast for Hamlet.’

Mr Berkoff has since said the death threat was in jest, saying: ‘I just did it to turn him on.’ 

The critic later said he had been interviewed by a detective from Holborn police station.

Mr de Jongh said the pair apologised to one another after the fiasco, and that he never took the threat too seriously – but admitted that it had been ‘spooky’.

Dame Judi Dench’s foul-mouthed postcard to a critic

After receiving criticism for her role in the play Madame de Sade and the 2008 James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, acting royalty Dame Judi Dench decided to fight back against The Daily Telegraph’s Charles Spencer.

The critic described her performance in Yukio Mishima’s play as ‘sour and cross’ and contested that it had been delivered in ‘formidable old-boot mode’. 

The Dame sent Charles a postcard saying: ‘I’ve always rather admired you but now realise you are an absolute sh*t.’ 

Regarding an onstage accident she had suffered during the play, she even went as far to say: ‘I’m only sorry I didn’t get a chance to kick you when I fell over – maybe next time.’ 

Fortunately, the outspoken critic took it all in good humour, saying his admiration for the actress had only ‘increased rather than diminished as a result’ of the correspondence.

‘We critics are constantly dishing it out and we ought to be able to take it too,’ he added.

Spencer revealed the hostile exchange publicly, as well as one he’d shared with actress Maureen Lipman .

He said she had sent him a ‘witty collage’ after he argued in a review that she was too ‘angular’ to play the role of a seductress.

Jurassic Park author who satirised critical journalist in his next book

Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park took an artistic approach to criticising his own critics.

Writing in The New Republic in 2006, journalist Michael Crowley accused Crichton of being ‘a menacing figure’ who used ‘potboiler prose’ to promote scepticism around climate change.

‘And now, like a mighty t-rex that has escaped from Jurassic Park, Crichton stomps across the public policy landscape, finally claiming the influence that he has always sought,’ the critique read, adding that his worldview was beginning to take hold even in the Oval Office.

After Crowley slammed Crichton’s ‘ravings’ on ‘the hidden truth about global warming’ in his book The State of Fear, the novelist decided to turn his own pen on him.

Crichton introduced a character in his subsequent novel, Next, called Mick Crowley, a political writer who had attended Yale – as Crowley had. 

More disturbingly, though, the character Crowley, was also described in the novel as having small genitalia, and was on trial for raping his sister’s two-year-old son.

To make his feelings on the Washington editor even more clear, he also referred to the fictional Crowley as a ‘d***head’ and ‘weasel’.

‘In lieu of a letter to the editor, Crichton had fictionalized me as a child rapist,’ Mr. Crowley hit back at the time.