There are no critical absolutes - no right or wrong - when it comes to reviews, and as I’m sure I’ve said before here, one of the great things about London is that there are still enough journalistic outlets for a range of opinions to be expressed (even if those expressing them still come from a relatively narrow background of class, education and race - where, apart from Tamara Gausi who is one of the regular Time Out team, are the black voices, for instance?).
So although only yesterday I was suggesting that the National seemed to have followed Fram with Afterlife to produce what I called a “double whammy of failure”, Sam Marlowe’s four-star review in yesterday’s The Times insisted that “Frayn’s erudition sparkles and there’s a buoyant sense of fun in Blakemore’s production to match its braininess.” On the other hand, The Independent’s Paul Taylor and Telegraph’s Charles Spencer were with me, with Paul’s two-star review calling it “a disappointing dud”, while Charlie writes that he was “reminded of such earlier Frayn turkeys as Look Look and Here” and realising “with a lurch of regret that he has another flop on his hands here.”
I suppose everyone has to make their own minds up.
As critics, that’s part of our jobs, after all, but then we don’t have to pay (except with our time). Readers, if we have any left, can choose whether to follow our advice or ignore us. Critics do also, of course, sometimes help to make each other’s minds up - I wrote here yesterday that “sometimes it is useful to have sent a canary down the mine first”, and I was treating some of some of the critical opinions I had already read of Dickens Unplugged to think about leaving it unplugged — but then a correspondent here suggested “you might reconsider whether or not your canary can be trusted”.
Given that, on the same night that Dickens Unplugged opened, two other shows also opened in the West End, I have to make an informed guess about whether or not to spend the time - and then the space in my column - on it; just as the public need to make a choice as to whether to spend their money on seeing it (or buying my paper or another one instead). Writing a Sunday column affords one that luxury - and speaking to two fellow Sunday colleagues last night, they both warned me off Dickens Unplugged, too. But one also admitted that she sometimes holds out for the daily reviews before she commits to making the final choice of what to cover. When we’re lucky enough in London - let alone regionally, which few of us cover anymore - to have so much to choose from, we sometimes need guidance. Sacrificing Dickens Unplugged might give one the opportunity to see something else instead.
But nowadays, as I’ve also said before, everyone’s a critic, and critics don’t provide the last - or even the first - word on everything anymore. Thanks to user reviews on theatre and newspaper websites, not to mention bulletin boards and blogs, the public are able to post their own comments - and some papers, from Standard Lite to The Independent, regularly publish public reviews, too. Now, as reported in The Stage last week, one theatre owner/producer is even encouraging it - Nica Burns of Nimax is to “introduce audience questionnaires monitoring theatregoers’ opinions on the artistic merit of the productions being staged in her venues.” This goes beyond the marketing exercise theatres routinely do to find out who their audiences are, but to find out what they think of what they’ve seen.
According to Burns, the initiative was proposed by Greta Scacchi, currently starring in The Deep Blue Sea at the Nimax-owned Vaudeville; most of the reviews, in fact, were very favourable for it, but still the public are staying away, so perhaps she wants to find out why. Scacchi herself told The Stage that it is about getting a layperson’s perspective: “Thankfully, the critics are mostly very good, very qualified and erudite and they see a lot of theatre… I don’t want to knock that at all. But this would be something to bridge the gap between the critics and members of the public.”
I’m all for a dialogue - but if that conversation is being solicited, it needs to be heard. The Stage reported that Burns plans “to post a selection of audience comments, both positive and critical, on the Nimax Theatres website.” (They’re not there yet). The National Theatre has a scheme to engage those aged 15-19 with its work called Entry Pass, and already does so: amongst them, one young reviewer Robert Walport concurs with many of the professional critics to dismiss Fram as “a complete disaster” and conclude, “The National Theatre does plenty of amazing work, this however can be consigned to the scrap heap”.
By coincidence, in my column in the next issue of Theatre Record I take myself to task for getting it wrong, and being too charitable to the Chichester "Cherry Orchard", letting my head be turned by a cast chock full o' names. You've got to call it as you see it; I should probably have seen it more clearly on that occasion.
Hi I'm Rob Walport, thanks very much for the mention but I must confess that I did temper that review of Fram. I write reviews online as the Teenage Theatre Critic. It's mostly opera these days but I still see bits and pieces of all sorts. You can read all my stuff and in particular my slightly more acerbic review of Fram at http://tttcritic.blogspot.com/2008/04/fram-national-theatre.html , it's the review I wish I had sent to the National Press Office but just didn't have the nerve. The one area I think you fail to pick up on in your post, is the slight moral gray area over giving free tickets to teenagers in exchange for reviews. I'm not saying it definitely does, but one could consider it to be buying reviews, free tickets and charming press staff are compelling when you're new at this criticism business. You'll note that on the whole all the reviews on the Entry Pass website are overwhelmingly positive. Maybe that's just a reflection of the quality of work at the National, but I'm not entirely convinced.
Rob W