[6][7][8] He attended St Catherine's College, Oxford, from 1958 to 1961, where he studied English and was appointed theatre critic of Cherwell.

[8][10] As a member of Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), in 1959, Billington played the Priest in The Birds, by Aristophanes, his only appearance as an actor,[11][12] and, in 1960, he directed a production of Eugène Ionesco's The Bald Prima Donna, a performance of which was attended by Harold Hobson, the drama critic for The Sunday Times.

[3] Beginning in the 1980s, he was a London arts correspondent for The New York Times,[14] and, since 1988, he has also served as drama critic for Country Life.

Billington left his role as The Guardian's chief theatre critic at the end of 2019, although he continues to write for the newspaper.

[2] Billington has taught in the University of Pennsylvania's Penn-in-London program since at least as early as 1997, and he teaches courses in theatre at King's College London, where he has been a visiting professor since 2002.

"[24] As a director his work also includes The Will by Marivaux at the Barbican Conservatory, London, with an ensemble from the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1987; Pinter's The Lover and Strindberg's The Stronger at the Battersea Arts Centre in 1997, and in 2008 at the MacOwan Theatre, Kensington, Pinter's Party Time and Celebration with students from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

[4][28] In fiction, Billington's name was introduced in Death of a Hollow Man by Caroline Graham, later adapted for the Midsomer Murders television mystery series, in which DCI Tom Barnaby coaxes deluded local director, and double murderer, Harold Winstanly into accompanying him to the police station by suggesting Michael Billington and journalists from various respectable publications would be waiting to discuss his work.