I noted last week how I felt when I was at odds with (most of) my national colleagues regarding Sinatra at the London Palladium, and sent a vote of sympathy to Nicholas de Jongh who was similarly isolated over Embers. That’s where one of us marches out-of-step alone; but what about the more extreme reactions that happen for the same show by different reviewers that fall outside the middling average we normally create overall?
On the one hand, Benedict Nightingale of The Times gave a five-star rave to Hampstead’s revival last week of The Best of Friends: “if you feel a hankering for a piece with a grace, mental elegance and literary distinction seldom found in our raucous, dumbed-down world, why not join Patricia Routledge, Michael Pennington and Roy Dotrice as they roam the first half of the 20th century?”
But The Guardian’s Lyn Gardner feels quite the opposite, with her one-star pan: calling it “the worst of theatrical experiences”, she says, “it is warm, intelligent and always elegant, but about as exciting as a cup of cocoa spiked with half a dozen Mogadon. Its place is on the radio, not in the theatre - although I did spend one scene quite happily admiring the abundance of William Morris wallpaper and Roy Dotrice’s fake beard.”
Did they see the same show? Yes – but they clearly saw different things in it. It’s a salutary reminder that theatre is always a personal experience, and that reviews, too, are personal to the people writing them.
