“Pull quotes” from reviews are a standard way of promoting shows in ads and on signage in the front of the theatre. The Critics’ Circle have long been urging producers to attach critics’ names to the quotes where possible, not just as a matter of ego for critics who want to see their names adorning West End marquees, but also for attribution purposes: if a critic’s name is attached, the producers are less likely to brazenly misquote or (at least quote selectively), since a critic will complain if their name is attached to something they didn’t actually say. But if a publication’s name only appears, it could come from anywhere it appeared in it – say a feature article, or even a columnist. (I’ve seen quotes attributed to the Sunday Express, of which I am theatre critic, for Footloose and My Brilliant Divorce, neither of which I wrote, and when I checked where they had come from, I was told the quotes appeared in columns that had been written by the film critic and Vanessa Feltz respectively).
But it’s possible, in theory, for even a reader’s letter to be the source of a quote. Leading American theatre producer Scott Rudin, annoyed at the penchant for newspaper websites to now indulge in “reader reviews” (published from the moment a play begins performances, not just after they have officially opened), has made his irritation public by now using quotes from those “reviews” for his production of The Year of Magical Thinking (starring Vanessa Redgrave) in his advertising, citing the New York Times online as his source – much to the irritation, in turn, of the New York Times.
Michael Reidel, in his column in today’s New York Post, provocatively publishes extracts from the exchange of letters that have passed between Rudin and an assistant managing editor at the paper who is in charge of “ethics and standards” at the paper, the latter of whom claims that what he is there to uphold has been duly breached. When Rudin was challenged on the use of the reviews, Rudin replied, “I am at a loss to understand why you are questioning the sourcing of these quotes, since they are, in fact, directly taken from the New York Times Web site, and credited thus. The Times obviously feels these reviews have substantive credibility - otherwise, clearly they wouldn’t appear on the New York Times’ Web site … despite the fact they come from a random selection of faceless amateurs whose only qualification to review a play is that they bought a ticket and have access to a computer.”
The New York Times retorted, “We think that when you attribute a quote to “The New York Times Online” … readers are entitled to trust that the appraisal came from someone actually employed by the New York Times - not from a letter from a reader. The New York Times Online did not describe your play as ‘an evening of magical theater.’ A reader, not vouched for in any way by the New York Times, said that…. Lots of things that are published in the Times do not reflect the judgment of anyone at the paper. That is, not everything in the New York Times is of the New York Times.”
Rudin in turn replied, “That, as you say, ‘lots of things are published in the Times that do not reflect the judgment of anyone at the paper” is radiantly clear to all of us who read it… . You refer to these online reviews as ‘letters from a reader.’ They are not letters from any reader. They are reviews. You - the paper - label them reviews. There is something deeply corrupt about the Times’ professed offense at our using these reviews to sell a production of a play. If you continue to run them, you can expect to continue to see them in our advertising.” And when he failed to get a response from the New York Times to a further letter he sent them, he stung them further with another letter: “While it’s nice to receive lectures about ethics from the paper that brought us Judy Miller, Jayson Blair and the Duke lacrosse team, it’s not really what I was looking for.”
At a time when it has become an increasing practice for papers here, too, to publish readers’ reviews – from London Lite to The Independent – the same thing could start happening here. Its cheaper, of course, for a paper to just sit back and wait for a reader to file a review themselves than to send a critic. There was no one from The Independent at last night’s opening of Merrily We Roll Along that I went to in Derby — but there is an overnight review, of sorts, since a readers’ three-star review appears in today’s paper.
But there’s nothing new in the practice of “quoting” from “critics” who are not, in fact, critics. One of the most brazen stunts ever done by a producer was David Merrick’s legendary attempt to counteract the hostile reviews he’d received for his 1961 Broadway musical Subways Are For Sleeping. He found seven people who had the exact same names as those of the leading New York critics, invited them to see the show, and produced an ad with extracts from their comments on the show alongside their names – and photographs. The ad was due to run in all the leading New York papers until one editor noticed something incongruous: the picture of critic Richard Watts was of a black man, whereas Watts was white. The editor duly notified the other papers and the ad was pulled – except for the Herald-Tribune, which had already gone to press!
Merrick had apparently wanted to pull off this stunt for many years – but couldn’t do so because he couldn’t find a person who was also called Brooks Atkinson, the theatre critic of the New York Times. When Atkinson finally retired, Merrick seized his chance.
In the online world, of course, there are now many more opportunities for quotes to be sourced. Can it be long before a blog is quoted?
The film industry have been doing this for years - whenever you see the words "aintitcoolnews.com" after a quote on a film poster it's usually a good sign that the film must be avoided!
Whilst I enjoy your blog very much I am disheartened that you have taken another opportunity to sneer at amateur critics. What is it exactly that makes your opinion any more truthful or relevant than theirs?
Is it that you see a lot of theatre each week so you can automatically tell the good from bad ? Well as you like to point out there is often a lot of disagreement between newspaper critics themselves, so frequency of visit does not produce a reliable gauge of quality.
So why are the views of the professional critics considered by you to be more incisive than the common man that goes to the theatre only for the love of the experience ? You pointed out recently that not only did many of the critics go to oxbridge universities but also many of them were in the same college as you? Is it this that marks their card as being a cut above the rest? Am I getting closer to the truth now, that class is the key to the respect to which you afford opinion?
Reading theatrical boards I am as happy to trust the judgement of fellow theatre lovers as I am to turn to professional critics for guidance. Many of the regulars writing there can wittily point out the good and bad in productions and share this as opinion not the gospel truth. And "us commoners" at least have the decency to warn if they are going to reveal major plot points, a habit that is sorely lacking these days in the theatregoer armed with a pen and a pad in their laps.
OK, David, I'll tell you why reader reviews tend to be less reliable than those of professionals, and it's based on actual statistical analysis:
Out of curiosity, I started keeping tabs on the Independent's "YOU write the reviews" pieces throughout the month of last September. I had a hunch...
Some preliminary explanation is necessary. Now, whatever the rights and wrongs of including star ratings on reviews, when considered in bulk they can serve as a handy, albeit rough, arithmetical indicator of critical mood. This is despite the fact that different titles, and even reviewers, have their own methods of calculating star ratings.
When they were introduced in the Financial Times, I (as its then-junior theatre reviewer) put forward a mathematical argument that, assuming a statistically normal distribution around the mid-point of the scale (i.e. three stars on a scale of 1 to 5, or two and a half on a scale of 0 to 5), one should expect around half or even more of the shows one sees to merit that middle mark – three stars, say, with maybe 20% each gathering two or four stars and only the occasional one or five. Basically, extremes are rare; far more often you’ll see stuff that’s not especially distinguished one way or the other.
So, if that theory is valid, then from any sizeable sample of star-rated reviews, the mean value should be around 3, or a little under.
The Independent’s September theatre reviews bore out that hypothesis.
The punter-written reviews, however, averaged out at over four stars.
There are two main reasons for this, I think. The first is fairly obvious: as with any newspaper, TV or radio poll or debate where the public writes or phones in, the data is based on a self-selecting sample – people record their opinions because they feel strongly enough to do so. Few but the most dedicated are going to feel driven to go to the effort of saying something is not really worth getting excited about either way. So, unlike my statistical theory, the input from reader reviews will tend towards the extremes rather than the middle, the opposite of the standard of work on view overall.
The second reason is less conspicuous, but still simple. Paying punters have, well, paid. And they want to get their money’s worth. They will have bought their tickets in the first place because they expect to like what they see, and having laid out money, they will be even more keen to like it. And so they do. (Conversely, when they don't like it, their disappointment is the more bitter, again driving them to extreme ratings at the negative end.) If I had the time (and were sad enough) to conduct further and deeper study of the subject, I wouldn’t be surprised if average star rating from paying audience members rose more or less in proportion to average price paid.
So there you go. Detachment is a positive advantage in a reviewer. It should go without saying, really, that an impartial judgement is more reliable than a biased one; but strangely, it’s an idea that simply won’t take root.
I certainly do not trust amateur critics because they normally turn out to be just some idiot who has seen a show like BLOODBROTHERS 330 times. While on the other hand having seen a certain theatre critic from the Dail Mail storm out of various plays half way through the performance just because he's not allowed to swap seats doesn't inspire confidence either. Neither does reading reviews from certain critics who haven't seen the show that they have actually reviewed.
Who knows who's judgement to trust.
I guess you have to pick which amateur critics to trust or at least enjoy the output of. There is a world of difference between some random person writing in The London Paper about a show they loved or hated and reading the constant writings of a regular on a theatre board.
Some of the people at talkinbroadway/allthatchat see everything on Broadway at least once and you do build up a picture of them and their tastes. They tend to be older theatregoers there rather than the teens and twenties you get on some other boards and have a lifetime of theatre to compare against. Some of them I went on to meet in real life and become friends with.
I would argue against the points raised that because they have paid for the ticket they are more disposed to want to enjoy a show than a "detached" critic. I am sure that like myself they go along and hope for the best of course but find a lot that is just middling and say so. Very different from a once a year birthday treat type visitor who I agree may well do their best to love what they have paid a lot of money for.