Jumping the preview gun….

Though Trevor Nunn, of course, is keeping critics waiting to see his new production of King Lear that began public performances two and a half months before we are finally being allowed to review it (after which it has less than three weeks to run!), no such embargo applies to other columnists or the public itself to write about it. So we’ve already had Germaine Greer in The Guardian go on about Ian McKellen dropping his trousers to display “his impressive genitalia to the audience” (which she says was “for many of us the only memorable moment” in the production), and a big feature in The Independent about Nunn’s folly in keeping the critics at bay, in which Adrian Hamilton writes that Nunn “seems to have absorbed too much of the old king’s foolishness although not - if reports coming out of the RSC headquarters are to be believed - much of his fondness”.

Hamilton goes on to explain the circumstances in which the delay has occurred, namely Frances Barber’s injury, but says of keeping the critics out, “This is not only a discourtesy to the poor understudy, Melanie Jessop, who is having to take on both parts for nearly two months and will never gain a review out of it, but it is also an insult to the thousands of theatregoers who have paid good money for their seats and are now being told that the production they are witnessing is unworthy of presentation to the critics.”

He rightly points out that “press critics are not the be-all and end-all of theatrical success and judgement”, and notes, “The days so beloved of the Broadway comedies of the Thirties and Forties, when the players eagerly rushed for the first editions of the newspapers to revel in a success or slump in despair at a failure are long over. Many papers no longer even cover first nights on the night. It can take days for a review to appear.” (The paper he is writing in, The Independent, is one of the most guilty in this department.)

But that vacuum is increasingly being filled, as I’ve noted here before, by blogs, bulletin boards, and the publication of reader reviews (The Independent may have failed to produce an overnight review of its own for the Derby Playhouse production of Merrily We Roll Along, and still hasn’t reviewed it, but the day after the opening had a reader review instead).

One danger of reader reviews – who have bought their tickets and are therefore not subject to the usual “discretion” of embargoing their comments until after the official opening – is that they haven’t necessarily seen a finished product. But yesterday’s edition of London Lite – the free version of the Evening Standard – offered a “Backstage Blog” review of Lord of the Rings, which has been previewing for less than a week, and was headlined, “A musical only orcs could love”. The “review” attached to it says, “I wouldn’t get too enthusiastic! It is an awful production. Terrible singing, lack of tunes, terrible acting, strangely gesturing elves and a Gandalf who couldn’t seem to remember a single line! Gollum just seemed to be a poor shadow of Andy Serkis’s interpretation and the only actor who seemed worth his pay packet was Sam, who was excellent and stole the show!”

Of course, that’s just one person’s opinion (just as a critic’s is, too) – but it is being given prominent and damaging play in a London freesheet more than a month before the opening. The producers of Lord of the Rings have every right to be furious.