Local Hero - Royal Lyceum Edinburgh / Chichester 2022

I used to moderate a food forum, back in the olden days before anyone had blogs, Tripadvisor or Instagram. One problem the site ran into was when people who contributed to the forum started to believe they were reviewers, or critics, and started making business cards with their forum user names to hand out at restaurants, usually in the hope of getting a freebie. Much like this forum, contributors were a mix of professionals and enthusiasts. Tony Bourdain was great fun, always up for a heated debate. Marina O’Loughlin used to come for group dinners, back when she was at the Metro and before anonymity became her thing. #goodtimes

Where I think confusion enters, is when we enthusiasts use the term ‘reviewing’ or ‘review’ when we mean ‘writing a forum post’. Doesn’t matter how long, thoughtful, funny or erudite the post is. If you are not paid for it; it is not a review. We are humans sharing our experiences with other enthusiasts and it doesn’t matter if they were posted in preview, after press night or even before the show has opened. In fact, many of my favourite discussions on here are about shows that have closed (I love me a tonyloco remininiscence or a @cardinalpirelli observation about Oliver Awards of years past.)

Well, that’s certainly a view. I’m not sure it’s a view lots of our bloggers would agree with though!

Yes, that does come across a bit strong when bolded like that. They’d be welcome to disagree. I am open to changing my view.

When I used to blog about food I eventually switched to describing what I wrote as a ‘write up’ rather than a review. I didn’t see myself as a critic, just an enthuasiastic amateur. I think that there’s a lot of blurred lines now with bloggers, certainly with food bloggers, where you don’t always know if they were invited, if the meal was comped or if they got a few extras. The well known ones are essentially performing the service of a critic, without the reader always knowing exactly what happened. They’re paid by the PRs or the restaurant, in better service, extra starters or a whole meal, rather than by the publication. It is different for theatre, of course. Doesn’t matter if the bloggers paid for their ticket or not, the performance is the same.

But a blogger could write their thoughts three weeks after a performance, or the next day. You don’t know if they saw it in preview, or after press night. At least with a professional critic you know they are reviewing what you will go and see.

Having kicked off the debate, it's fascinating to read all the different views. For me, it has been interesting to note how the professional critics awarded universally positive reviews - regardless of embargoed copy. To evolve the discussion, when so much effort and cost goes in to a long creative process, is it fair that a wannabe online critic can potentially harm the future success of a production by openly reviewing and scoring a show that is previewing? As people who love theatre, shouldn't we respect the process and allow the company to complete the preview run before openly posting reviews? Particularly when one person's three star review is heavily outweighed by four and five star reviews (from some notable and highly respected critics).

Because if Quentin Letts hates something then it's usually a good indicator that I'll get on with it, whereas Steve is SO thoughtful that sometimes he gives productions more credit than they've earned and I end up sitting in the audience rolling my eyes and wondering how anyone could like it?

I agree that an unpaid review is as valuable as a paid review from a consumer perspective, often moreso because the unpaid reviewer tends to buy their own tickets and thus isn't as worried about staying on The List, and I agree that people shouldn't get carried away and consider themselves a reviewer just because they've scattered a few opinions across a message board and/or Twitter. But when you get people like Steve and Nicholas posting their reviews, hell, it's super easy to tell the difference between a review in a post and a post that's just an opinion without necessarily putting much critical thought behind it, right? The only problems are the people who think their opinion posts are as substantial as the review posts, and swaggering around the place because of it (like Happysooz's foodie friends, I don't know if we have any here so much).

(Also didn't Quentin Letts leave the Fail?)

I don't think that a professional review is more valuable, sorry if I wasn't clear about that. Far far from it! I was more chiming in that we need to be aware that we are not professional reviewers, so we can't be criticised for posting thoughts during previews. 

I'm often more interested in what people on here say than what most professional critics say. I can think of one recent example where a professional review shed light on a production (Holly Williams in the Independent made the BDSM angle of When We Have Sufficiently Tortured the Audience very clear, in a way that I thought posters on here hadn't.)

The question of worth is a really interesting one. I have now calibrated my tastes to many professional reviewers and posters. I know that I don't care what Michael Billington says, for example, so I read his reviews in the same way I read the football results.

Settling down with a single malt after the show and an eventful day.

Absolutely loved it, the pace and subtle changes to the plot were spot on and the musical score was as expected, having listened to the film soundtrack more times than I care to admit to, the new songs were riddled with subtle references and variations throughout and made me smile as they evoked the cinematography of the film.

Definitely will see it again when it transfers to the Old Vic, not sure it will appeal to everyone as knowing the film enhances the experience and may not have the same impact to someone coming to it fresh and with my limited musical theatre experience am the last person to understand what makes a good musical.

Saw it over the weekend, well worth the trip to Edinburgh, so much so that despite the distance I’ve booked another trip. It’s a beautiful show and I personally prefer it to the film.
I’d say it definitely helps if you have seen the film beforehand, I went with a friend who hadn’t and although they still enjoyed it there were a few things that they just ‘didn’t get’ and couldn’t understand why they got the reaction they did (the rabbit, motorbike and mermaids are ones I remember them mentioning).

Wow. The highest compliment I can pay this production is that it made me fall in love with Ferness and that idiosyncratic Forsyth ambience all over again. My biggest worry was that inserting songs would dilute the overall story. All I can say is silly me. Mark Knopfler has come up with some absolute barnstormers, I especially enjoyed Filthy Dirty Rich. Will book for the Old Vic as soon as it goes onsale!

Old vic season announcement for 26th April 2019. I assume this will be announced then

So Old Vic May 2020 after another run at the Lyceum beforehand, perhaps...

I'd be very surprised if it didn't do another stint next year.