Only the other day I was blogging about how quotes from “reviews” can be misleading and how muddied the waters are becoming thanks to the internet, where of course the fact that everyone’s a critic can now allow anyone to rush into “print” (or at least electronic space). Now, as reported online on this site yesterday and as the lead story on the front page of today’s paper, “Theatre producers who misleadingly quote reviews in show publicity material face the threat of legal action from the end of this year, when a new EU directive comes into force in the UK.” Under this legislation, “Material will be deemed punishable under the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive if it fulfils two criteria. Firstly, it must fall short of the standard of care reasonably expected of a producer, and secondly, it must be shown to have influenced consumer behaviour. Misquoted theatre reviews must be shown to have had an impact on audience members’ decisions to purchase tickets.”
Quite how that fact will be quantified will no doubt be tested in the courts when the occasion arises. But it will at least put producers on guard – as Nicholas Allott of Cameron Mackintosh Ltd told The Stage, “If you take liabilities you’re asking to be shot down. It’s a running gag, but what this [legislation] is saying is that the gag must end.”
And only yesterday, precisely one of those liberties occurred: Dominic Cavendish reviewed the National’s Landscape with Weapon, and wrote of it, “If anyone was going to produce a scorching, blinding, lacerating play about the arms industry, I’d have put smart money on that someone being Joe Penhall.’”
His review, however, then went on to explain why this was, in his view, sadly not the case. But in an e-mail newsletter sent out by the National’s marketing department yesterday, they proudly trumpet the following quote from the Daily Telegraph: “A scorching, blinding, lacerating play. The performances are uniformly excellent.”
I think we have a test case right here….
Just what everyone needs - another new crime on the statute book.
But will there be a law against critics writing fatuous things?
Mark, you yourself managed, just a few days ago, to completely reverse a critic's meaning by quoting, accurately but absolutely out of context, an old review of "Waiting For Godot" to help prove your point.
You turned a rave into a pan. The reverse of the National's trick. But essentially the same crime.
Will you be prosecuted? Should you be?
Luckily, nowadays, the wonders of the web are at hand and your egregious error was corrected on-line almost instantly. Just as you speedily corrected the latitude taken by the National's marketing department.
Both matters resolved - much quicker and much more effectively than by a law that chooses to prosecute only one side.
Surely everyone should have an equal right to make a complete tit of themselves in print?
.
(readers can witness for themselves the wicked Mr Shenton's hideous and ghastly crime at: http://www.thestage.co.uk/shenton/2007/04/rushing_to_judgement.php)
David,
When reviews are misquoted for publicity purposes, who's making a tit out of whom? I don't see any "themselves" element in it.
And both in law and in reality there's a huge difference between what is at best momentary carelessness and at worst, in your term, fatuity - as in the Shenton example you cite (but for which the link you provided doesn't work) - and what is intentional misrepresentation of another, as in misleading ad quotes.
Take these two points together, and your argument begins to seem rather like saying I cut myself shaving the other day so we shouldn't bother ourselves about stabbing incidents on the Tube. It doesn't follow, in any respect.
How refreshing to hear Mark's affection for A Chorus Line, I indeed am much the same. I did a round trip in April (7000 miles) just to see the show. Saw it on 3 consequtive nights (saw it 50 times at Drury Lane including 1st and last nights of Broadway cast and British cast)and it was just about as good as it gets.The new cast was wonderfully in tune with Mr Bennett's classic show and just hope that the producers can find a theatrein the West End which hasn't been blocked by juke box shows.