People usually complain when critics give bad reviews; one member of the theatregoing public, Ian Senior, was so incensed by what he saw as critical sneering, particularly against musicals, that he launched a regular newsletter, now discontinued, called R Cubed News that ran for 176 issues in which he turned his vendetta against critics - or cretics, as he labelled them - into an obsession. Apparently a professional economist, he even devised a scheme for measuring the financial cost of each bad review.
None of which, of course, accounts for the ongoing commercial success of the likes of We Will Rock You in the face of overwhelmingly negative reviews, but then it is perhaps the exception that proves the rule. But I have a far more serious complaint: critics giving good reviews to bad shows can be just as damaging.
Readers may actually spend money to go to them as a result; producers, directors, writers and actors may think they’re doing a good job. The currency of good theatre is being fatally shortchanged.
Of course, what’s good and bad is always a matter of opinion, and I suppose this is mine: I’ve been frankly astonished this week by some of the raves this week for both Zorro and The Female of the Species, and that’s partly, of course, because I disagree so vehemently with their assessments. Yet I’ve often said before that there’s no right or wrong in this business, and one of the great things about London is that there are still so many of us writing that it allows for a variety of opinion to be expressed.
But what’s alarming about the reception accorded to Zorro — four stars from Michael Billington in The Guardian, who had “a rollicking good time”, and raves in the Daily Telegraph, Mail and Express — is that it sets the benchmark so low for musicals that I begin to wonder now if they will spot a really good one if they see it. Perhaps I shouldn’t begrudge my colleagues finding their pleasures where they can - but it demonstrates how little musicals are understood and appreciated. Give them something splashy and mindless, and they’re in heaven; given them something intelligent, and they often don’t get it. I voiced this opinion to one American theatre producer yesterday, who replied, “I cannot tell you how often I have thought [the same] sentiments. There is really not an understanding here of the ‘art’ of musical theatre and how to access it. It’s almost as if the crits here are happy if the production aims for a 2 or 3 out of 10 and gets it, but heaven forbid you try for a 10 and only get 8! Terrifying, really…”
But standing up against these low standards also exposes one to charges of elitism and even the suggestion that one doesn’t like musicals. Of course, regular readers of this blog will know that I am a major champion for musical theatre: I would actually unashamedly say it’s my favourite kind of theatre. But I like good ones.
And there’s a terrible danger when critics start liking bad ones. We are allowing ourselves to be as dumbed down as the audiences these shows are trying to attract. I recently had a fascinating correspondence with another colleague, Rhoda Koenig, who like me is also a fan of musical theatre, but desperate to maintain standards - and decorum. She hits the nail on the head about the critical dangers we face, not just in the inappropriate behaviour we have to endure from some audiences, but also in what we are, by inference, saying about them: “I saw The Music Man yesterday, which I loved, but it gave me another insight into the problem [we have been talking about]. In front of me two idiots (not children) started bouncing up and down and squealing and clapping in rhythm the minute the overture started. As you can imagine, at Chichester they were the only ones in the audience doing so, so they stopped pretty quick. But it made me think — they were already well into the idea of Having a Good Time before there was anything to make anyone feel anything even remotely like that hyped-up level of excitement. So I thought, this is why intelligent (or honest) people are against those brash, mindless shows we hate — they are not even bad theatre, they are not theatre at all. They don’t ask the audience to watch and listen and respond emotionally and perhaps even intellectually to what is put before them. They cater to people who are already worked up when they get there, who are totally into themselves, not what is on stage — that is less important than getting excited and being in a crowd, so they are in no position to take in anything new, much less respond to it, much less be critical about it. They are treating the theatre as if it were a bottle of booze. So if we attack the lousy shows, they take it as a personal attack on them, and (unlike the rest of the times they feel this way when we disparage lousy shows and the people who like them) they are quite right to do so.”
But if in these cases we’re out-of-step with those audiences (and therefore some of our readers), critics can sometimes bend too far in the other direction to try to get in line with them, which is the only possible explanation I can think of for some of the favourable reviews that Dirty Dancing got when it first opened. (It opened to a huge advance, and they couldn’t be seen as so out-of-step with those audiences who had committed - financially — to loving it before the curtain even went up).
Sometimes, of course, we may understandably wish to simply encourage a dying art, rather than hasten its demise: the West End has over the decade become a commercial wasteland for plays, particularly new ones, so the arrival of The Female of the Species at the Vaudeville has again been welcomed by some. There are plenty of complex reasons why new plays are so seldom produced in the West End - both their creators and the audiences for them has migrated elsewhere to places like the National, Almeida and Donmar Warehouse, which each exercise an artistic policy so there is a better chance of them actually being good, rather than the purely commercial imperative of the West End whose primary policy is simply to sell tickets. (Of course, it’s not infallible: the National produced Michael Frayn’s Afterlife, but then different responsibilities applied there with their duty to honour the work of one of our greatest living writers, and after giving them two smash hits with Copenhagen and Democracy, Nick Hytner obviously felt duty-bound to put it on, even though it turned out to be a resounding dud).
I’m sure that the likes of Charles Spencer, Quentin Letts and Nicholas de Jongh are sincere in their enjoyment of this feeble (but ferociously well-acted) comedy, and perhaps it’s my loss that I couldn’t share it; but audiences are going to have to commit up to £47.50 to see it (while the bottom price is a staggering £27.50 for the back of the remote upper circle), and I want to spare them the pain of the time and money they will lose if they do.
I was relieved, later in the day, to discover that at least I wasn’t alone: in his blog entry on the New York Times website, Ben Brantley reported that Germaine Greer had refused to meet the director Roger Michell and cast, saying “I’m a really busy person, whose time is precious. I will not waste it.” Brantley comments, “I had thought Ms. Greer was being unpardonably arrogant. It turns out she was showing common sense. In a month of theatergoing such as I have been pursuing in London, I expected to scrape bottom from time to time. What I didn’t expect was to find [Eileen] Atkins there.”
Mr Billington's enjoyment of Zorro is deeply offensive to me. How can a man whose great joy in life be finding heretofore unknown nuances in the work of Harold Pinter sit through the tacky and amatuer dramatics of a musical and find it rollicking? If Hairspray weren't running at the Shaftsbury then Zorro would've played there for a disastrous three months and joined the long list of Shaftsbury disasters. I feel confident that despite some critical raves Zorro will not be with us for a very long time because like The Far Pavillions or Lautrec the audience will ultimately see it for what it is. We Will Rock You may be an awful show but if you're in the mood to hear the music of Queen performed to the hilt - you'll be satisfied, hell you'll be elated. However, until there is some sort of training of British musical theatre writers and performers in how it's done -we will forever be subject to bad musicals written by untrained writers and reviewed by critics who are also untrained in what quality musical theatre can be. Grrrrrrrr.
Couldn't agree more. Look at the reviews for Street Scene at the Young Vic this morning (including Mr B's). While it's not a bad show, it's definitely amateurish by West End or Broadway standards. Some critics don't seem to be able to tell the difference.
I do hope you are all wearing appropriate headgear, as a fall from that high horse you all appear to be riding at the moment might really hurt.
It's not a high horse Mr Vale - its called standards. 3 old Gypsy Kings songs interperolated into a show do not a Gypsy Kings musical make. One of the songs is on a M& S advert right now. That aside - Zorro is a slapdash mess of a show that critics such as yourself see fit to allow to "get a pass" because it doesn't hurt anyone and with a "high horse" attitude that anyone who wants to see a show called Zorro will be satisfied. This is the attitude that gave Daddy Goodness some swell notices as well. Musicals can be serious theatre and by serious I'm not saying that they can't be fun or a lark - but works of theatre that have a certain level of craft and respect for its audience. Zorro does not possess that. It is a trademark to be exploited and that is what the producers have done. Whether it is successful or not only time will tell. But as a critic you should set standards for yourself and for your reading audience here (presumably more theatrically wise than the commoners of the general public) at The Stage which are not insulting.
Does Mr Shenton's dismay at reviewers who do not agree with him extend to elsewhere in the pages of the Stage, this very paper, this very week, where Zorro is referred to a ' an absolute winner' and potentially, 'the hit of the season'. All Mr Shenton is really saying is that he disagrees with some people and some people disagree with him. Hardly newsworthy or even noteworthy. How is he suddenly the oracle and everyone else to be dismissed? Or to put it rather more robustly , why should his position on the Sunday Express (hardly the home of the arts, more the home of arts journalists who can't get employed anywhere else) earn him any particular eminence, indeed, anything at all, except ill-disguised sniggers?
"But I like good ones" - I hope this is a deliberate example of the functionally meaningless distinctions claimed within the necessary framework of subjectivity that you'd just spent so long acknowledging!
Gosh! What a hornet’s nest we seem to have stirred up. Firstly I should stress that I have the greatest respect for Mr Shenton who has a strong passion and knowledge of theatre past and present. I am sure it is one of the reasons he can write with authority for The Stage and indeed many other publications. I simply felt that his censure of other peoples criticism a little heavy, prompting as it did, all that pompous, elitist whinging from some of his readers. Still, it’s all good fun.
Like Mr Shuttleworth too, I was somewhat bemused by his comment – “But I like good ones.” I too like good musicals! What we each class as a ‘good musical’ might differ and that is where personal taste enters the equation. For the record, I also like a few slightly flawed musicals, some silly musicals and one or two mediocre musicals. I even like some songs from some very bad musicals. I know for a fact there are some musicals out there that I absolutely hate, even though they are revered classics. The fact that I can recognise the difference is why I write for The Stage.
I think the issue that is being ignored here is - how can a critic alter their standards for the show that they are seeing? Yes there are different standards for professional vs. amatuer , but there should be a level of quality in the West End and at West End prices. There are certain professional standards that should be acknowledged. A crap musical like Zorro! doesn't achieve those standards and yet it doesn't matter to certain critics because it's simply a musical and who the hell cares? Mr. Billington (and presumably Mr Vale though I don't know many of his reviews) would not let a show with the shoddy dramaturgy and stage craft of Zorro! pass muster if it were not a musical. There is inherent condescension in their reviews. There is a lack of respect of the theatre artists who can do better work and a lack of respect to the ticket buying public who can spend their money on better musicals - mindless or otherwise. I may not like certain celebrated musicals but inherrent in my dislike is a respect for the craft that made them. Zorro! is a show without craft. Whether its crap or not is a matter of opionion. But it doesn't even achieve the first hurdle of being worthy of a West End stage.