Spoiler alert!…..

On the American theatre bulletin board talkinbroadway.com, it’s a common courtesy of people who post comments on shows they are discussing there to preface their contributions with the phrase “spoiler alert” or some such notification if they are going to detail key plot points – knowledge of which could spoil the surprise and therefore enjoyment of other theatregoers if they didn’t know them already.

Yet no such inhibition seems to apply to theatre critics, who will sometimes happily fill columns and columns of their copy with detailed plot exposition. Of course its part of the job of a review to convey some of the information about content as well as context: the question most people want answered about a show they know nothing about is, “What’s it about?”, followed by “What’s it like?” But if you are told absolutely everything that it is about, there’s no point finding out what it’s like – because part of the joy (or not) of what it’s like is finding out how the characters arrive where they do.

The intricate, layered storytelling of Pedro Almodovar’s films is driven by a series of coincidences, surprises and revelations; and they’re at the heart, too, of the stage version of his 1999 film All About My Mother that opened at the Old Vic on Tuesday night. I was astonished, however, to read a review by one of my colleagues that began his review by rewinding the plot from the end.

SPOILER ALERT! Do not read the next two paragraphs if you want to see the show for yourself – but too late if you’ve already read the paper that didn’t issue an alert. In this review, we discover right at the beginning of the review that Lola – a character we don’t actually meet till near the end – has to face up to some “home truths” that have “arrived in the questing form of Lesley Manville’s Manuela, who cares for his latest offspring, born to the distinctly fallen and now dead nun, Sister Rosa.” Whoooa!!!! Here we are told not only who impregnated the nun – but also that she in fact dies in the course of the action. I think audiences would like to discover that for themselves.

Manuela, of course, is on a search for her son’s father, following her son’s death in a road accident – I’ll concede that it’s difficult to describe the journey without alluding to this fact (which I did myself in an online review elsewhere), even if that’s another event the audience might prefer to discover for itself if they are new to the story; but to be told the outcome is a step too far: “Esteban’s father turns out to be dying of Aids and someone who has remained true to nothing and no one.”

RESUME READING HERE IF YOU SKIPPED THE LAST TWO PARAGRAPHS: Another danger is critics revealing key lines and jokes. Luckily, one of Diana Rigg’s choice ones – what Paul Callan in his Daily Express notice calls “probably the most risqué line of her career” – is, Callan adds in parenthesis, “too unprintable”. (But not for Variety’s David Benedict, who in his review reveals the joke in full).

But the pity is that far too much is printable and has now been printed – and imprinted on audience’s minds. The show has been spoilt for them. Perhaps they should apply to the paper concerned for refunds – that might stop reviews that do that.