Information overload….

Where do you draw the line nowadays between gossip and news, fact and fantasy? In the age of Heat, Pop Bitch and Sky News, celebrity ‘news’ becomes fact simply because it’s published or reported, however unreliably, on one of those outlets. But in the microcosmic world of the theatre, where every box office and casting office nowadays seems hotlined to the website discussion boards, a new kind of “fact-ion” is coming into circulation, where the news emerges first, not by formal announcement, but by internet gossip.

Even the press offices appear bewildered: today I saw a reputable theatre website reporting the “official” dates of The Sound of Music coming to the West End’s London Palladium, but when I checked with the show’s PR personally, he was amazed. He’d asked the producers concerned earlier today himself, and was told there was still none confirmed. Somehow, the internet knows more than the press office or even, it seems, the producer’s office!

The same thing happened last week when I saw another story confirming the full London cast for Evita on another site. Again, I checked with the show’s PR, who simply sent me the press release I already had, giving me the names of the three principals. When I replied that the website concerned seemed to have more, he replied that that was all he had….

The gradual release of names that have been signed for the London opening of Wicked in September has been the same thing. Speculation has been rife in the chatrooms; and when I’ve sought confirmation, it seems that the names mentioned have indeed been seen for the show. But nothing had been signed, and indeed, several of the names strongly mooted haven’t ended up in the roles they were being mooted for.

I guess we’ve always been warned not to believe everything we read in the papers; but even more discretion needs to apply out there in the online world, which of course is anything but discreet.