John Lahr is the senior drama critic of The New Yorker where he has written about theatre and popular culture since 1992. He is the author of sixteen books including Show and Tell, a collection of his New Yorker profiles; Dame Edna Everage and the Rise of Western Civilisation which won the Roger Machell Prize for the best book on the performing arts in 1992, and Prick Up Your Ears: The Biography of Joe Orton, which was made into a film starring Gary Oldman. He is the editor of The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan.

John Lahr divides his time between New York and London.