Critics have, in this attention-deficit age, mostly signed up to facilitating the quick critical fix: the star rating that provides an instant visual summary of what a critic feels about the show. (Only The Observer amongst the national papers doesn’t provide them, and neither does The Stage). There is, of course, no scientific formula for how it is arrived at; how we arrive at our decisions as to what to award a show is up to us. And just as the words they accompany are ultimately and inevitably a subjective statement of opinion, however we seek to dress them objectively, so the way each of us applies our star ratings is a personal choice, too.
Some critics are frugal in their ratings; in a recent Guardian blog, Matt Trueman pointed out, “You have to go as far back as August 2009 to find Lyn Gardner’s last full house (Love Letters Straight from Your Heart, since you ask)”. Ian Shuttleworth, responding to the Guardian blog, wrote that he gives “maybe one five star review a year in the FT”. Others are far more generous: hardly a week seems to go by without Libby Purves, chief theatre critic of The Times since June, awarding a show a full house, so much so that “doing a Libby” is now critical shorthand for giving shows a five star rating.
And of course just as star ratings are personal, so how one responds to them is personal, too: I’d far rather a critic as enthusiastic and generous as Purves, who exemplifies those qualities in person as well, than the hard-to-please (and therefore often hard-to-like) critical curmudgeon, of which there are always one or two candidates in our ranks. There are, of course, also the bi-polars: the critics who vacillate between the two extremes, praising some things to the skies and damning others to the depths. Then there are those who mostly sit on the fence, hovering predictably around the three star mark and straying the occasional point up or down, but never going to the extremes, and which can be a little dull.
Of course, just as you find out what a critic’s tastes are if you read and follow them long enough, you also learn to read meaning into their star ratings, too. I’ll never forget Nicholas de Jongh’s review for a play called Embers at the Duke of York’s in 2006, where he wrote, “I was fired, moved and enthralled by Embers. I rate it as one of the major experiences of my theatre-going life.” Yet he could only be stirred to award it a four-star rating.
As Matt Trueman writes in The Guardian blog I quoted earlier, “A production can be entirely successful - vivid and vibrant, fiercely intelligent, roaringly enjoyable and deeply emotive - and still not merit that final accolade. Even that old critical chestnut, a ‘must-see’ event, doesn’t necessarily confer top marks. To earn that fifth star, must theatre be more than unmissable? Clearly we’re not talking about perfection. No one would maintain the existence of such a thing.”
Matt proceeds to try to arrive at a working definition of what might merit a five-star review, and suggests, “Life-changing seems a bit much to ask, and memorable falls short. So what: joyous? Rapturous? Vital? Of course, facetiousness aside, there’s no formula. We can’t judge theatre, multifarious as it is, according to a single goal. For me, a five-star rating is a very personal judgment - as reflective of the critic in question as the show itself. Four stars can be given grudgingly, but five is a real statement of belief. It says: ‘This is what theatre can do.’ It says: ‘If only all theatre were this good.’ It says: ‘This is what I believe theatre ought to be doing.’ It looks to the future. Because there’s always a reason not to give five stars. Fault can always be found. To give five is a leap of faith. It is to set oneself up for judgment, to put one’s head above the parapet and have the courage of your convictions. There’s risk in that, and critics deserve credit for doing so. Not five stars, though: it is their job, after all.”
It is, in other words, a way of nailing your critical colours to the mast. I’ve just looked back over the last couple of months, and I see that I gave four five-star reviews in August (the Young Vic’s Beauty Queen of Leenane, the West End transfer of the Menier’s Shirley Valentine; a return visit to Billy Elliot and Daniel Kitson’s It’s All Right Now at this year’s Edinburgh fringe); and four in September (the Royal Court’s Clybourne Park; the Donmar’s Passion and the returns of Complicite’s A Disappearing Number and Simon Stephens’ Punk Rock). They’re all shows that resonated for me so completely that I wanted to share that enthusiasm with my readers; but it’s also striking that half of them were repeats, so that may have skewed the overall average.
In his response to The Guardian blog, Ian Shuttleworth quoted an unnamed colleague’s definition of what makes a four or five star rating: “A four-star show is one that is excellent in every respect; a five-star show is a four-star show plus magic.” And Ian says, “I tried following this, but realised after a while that there was always an element of editorialising in my five-starrings, so I inwardly accepted that and now work more or less on the definition ‘This is not only comprehensively excellent, but it’s important that as many people as possible go to see it’.”
That sets the bar for five star reviews exceptionally high; no wonder that, when Time Out sought to introduce a sixth star for shows that deserve that extra accolade, they were hardly ever able to award it, and it was eventually quietly dropped. But I like Ian’s definition, only in as much as being an enthusiast for the theatre I do hope that a five-star rating might lead more people to a show I love.
But I always hope that my star ratings are read in context with the words that accompany them. Too often seeing a star rating is a way of avoiding having to read the words themselves; in fact, critical colleagues will often exchange opinions of a show not by asking each other what we thought of it, but merely asking what star rating we gave it. But I also use my star rating sometimes as part of the narrative of my review, to help me having to write the words themselves: because I am invariably pushed for space in my 500 word Sunday review column, the rating provides its own editorial shorthand for what I feel without me having to use precious further words to spell it out.
And if course, if five stars is truly exceptional and three stars, by being in the middle, is good but average, four stars has an awful lot of ground to cover. Four stars I usually take to be very good, but it can often be quite good - productions where four is a bit generous but three is too stingy.
5 = You MUST see this.
4 = See this.
3 = Everyday theatre. Might as well go if you have a ticket.
2 = Not very good.
1 = You MUST see this.
Our site recently got attacked by the Scotsman at this year's Edinburgh Festival for not showing what our star ratings meant, despite there not actually being any written reasons to what their own star system actually means. And for giving to many 4 and 5 star reviews - again despite our site giving more 0/1/2 star reviews than ever before. I know you have touched upon this in a previous blog so I won't hang onto this point.
As editor of The Public Reviews I approached this criticism head on and with consultation of all my 80+ UK/Worldwide reviewers and came up with a guideline on what the stars we publish mean - these can now be seen along with biogs (continually being added to) of our reviewers, here: http://www.thepublicreviews.com/about-us/
We also use a slightly different star system to most, as the above poster Emma has said, sometimes you can't put a show clearly in either bracket of a show. We run a half star system, where a show can receive a rating between 0 and 5 with half stars throughout. Initially however for the first 2.5 years of the sites life we never gave star ratings preferring that the readership would read the review to find out what they actually thought; We changed to using the stars due to the increasing way theatre's now market their shows after press nights. Increasingly more companies and producers will only quote a star rating on posters due to size/space limitations and so in order to boost our own profile and readership we reluctantly moved to the star system. This has worked across the board not only have we reached a staggering number of unique visitors per month to the site (in excess of 65,000 pm) but we now are being invited to many theatres which wouldn't take us seriously when we first began.
I agree with what you say here Mark, that even with a system with which reviewers base their ratings on, in the end it is all down to the subjective point of view of that individual reviewer. Although we at The Public Reviews strive to allocate reviewers who prefer a certain genre of theatre to that type of show - I have never understood how some nationals for example, will send a reviewer who fervently dislikes musicals to a musical...who in the end does that help?
I hate the star system. I find that people say "it got four stars" and don't even know what the reviewer had said about the play. It makes people lazy. They just don't bother to read the reviews. It's so annoying when one spends valuable time writing them.
As much as I would like the star system to go away, it won't so I'm very happy that Andrew ( a West End Whinger) has come up with an undertsandable guide to the ratings. The three star rating is the hardest to define because sometimes it really means two stars but the critic has some sort of need not to insult those involved with the production. Does Bllington ever give a Pinter or Ayckbourn play less than 3 stars? I've learned over the years not to trust any reviews in Edinburgh simply because of the enthusiasm factor on both the productiom and the critical side. The half star system might be the best way to go then we'd know the real meaning of a 3 star play.
Stars are lazy and detract from the review.It's like the critic is also marking his own review,too.Out damn star!
Peter: God, I'd LOVE to have the added articulation of half-stars! I'd say easily half the plays I review are three-star jobs - in line with the bell curve of production quality, where obviously most tend to cluster around the middle. But that can range from 2.500001 to 3.499999. That's why, as Mark says and as other reviewers have also said, you need to read the star rating in tandem with the body text and sometimes as a kind of dialogue with it, as one finesses the other.
Mrs Spratt, please don't think it's our choice!
@ Ian
I'm sure it's not the critics choice.Have they ever taken this up collectively with their peers and editors?At least the Indy has chairs and zonked out critics most of the time,he he.
Coincidentally, just this afternoon a sub on the FT called me up to query the rating of my review of Enlightenment at the Hampstead. I'd given it three, but she pointed out quite reasonably that it read more like a two. This is one of those instances where I'd have loved the option of two and a half, but on this occasion I was satisfied to concede and allow it to be bumped down. Sometimes I do give too many threes. I just didn't want to seem to be damning Ed Hall's tenure at Hampstead from the start. But that's a matter of policy and diplomacy which I shouldn't have allowed to interfere with my verdict on the production itself.
A few months ago I invited subscribers to the British Theatre Guide Newsletter to vote on whether or not we should use star ratings in our reviews. The vote was overwhelmingly against. I also asked our 30+ reviewers to vote in a separate poll. There too the vote was overwhelmingly against.
Many readers who voted were very strong in their dislike of a star system. One comment stands out in my mind: "Please, no! No!"
It seems to be theates which like the system, for it enables them to shout a four of five star review from the housetops rather than use the much more considered and sometimes slightly ambivalent comments made in the body of the review. Readers too, it would seem, prefer the more thoughtful and deeper approach. I have to say I was relieved. Like all reviewers, I give a lot of thought not just to what I write but just as much to how I write it. To reduce this to what is essentially a mark out of five does a great disservice to everyone involved in the production.