19,795 posts
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Mar 12, 2019 14:11:48 GMT
Interesting post on Facebook from The Reviews Hub In summary, one of their reviewers gave a bad review and the performer/company got hold of their personal details and set about harassing them on line and at their workplace 😮. Have any of our bloggers/reviewers had any comeback from stuff they’ve written? |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2019 14:47:56 GMT
Well there was that time a well known theatre critic called me a sex addict based on a review I wrote....
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2019 15:01:20 GMT
I'd be lying if I said I didn't take half an hour out this morning to track this one all the way back and see if I could figure out who it was about. The good news is no one's going to need to reconsider how they feel about a beloved theatre actor, but if you like comedians who are also popular with Britain's Got Talent audiences then you may be disappointed.....
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2019 15:15:14 GMT
I'd be lying if I said I didn't take half an hour out this morning to track this one all the way back and see if I could figure out who it was about. The good news is no one's going to need to reconsider how they feel about a beloved theatre actor, but if you like comedians who are also popular with Britain's Got Talent audiences then you may be disappointed..... Well I've always found Amanda Holden's attempts at acting rather hilarious but I wouldn't necessarily call her a "comedian". |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2019 15:17:25 GMT
I’ve had far more problems with fans than performers!
Performers/creatives are on the whole polite- either wanting a correction or seeking clarification/creative discussion (especially at fringe level people are open to critical discussions)
Fans however are another story. I’ve had memorable encounters with Martin Freeman and Andrew Scott fans before. And of course Cucumberpatch.
My personal favourite remains the person who said my comment on the Julius Caesar mob being “glad I wasn’t part of it” had “invalidated her theatrical experience” and proceeded to rant at me on Twitter for half a day...
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2019 15:18:23 GMT
Hang on! Does this mean that if I post a bad review, dear Jonny B would hunt me down and do unspeakable things to me in retaliation?
I went to see 'Company' recently and it was quite frankly the worst thing I've seen in recent memory . . . . .
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1,972 posts
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Post by sf on Mar 12, 2019 16:09:49 GMT
Fans however are another story. I’ve had memorable encounters with Martin Freeman and Andrew Scott fans before. After I wrote a (very, very not-positive) review of Mr. Will Young's embarrassingly dreadful performance in 'Cabaret' on my blog, I had some very entertaining emails from his fans. One of them suggested I ought to write Mr. Young a personal apology ("Dear Will, I'm sorry you were so sh*t in 'Cabaret' at the Lowry last week..."). Another was headed "WHO THE F*** DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!?!?!" (I didn't read the body of that email). Someone had found the review and posted it to a fan site, or maybe a forum for people suffering from rabies. Those people must have remarkably empty lives if they get so worked up about a complete stranger panning their idol's performance. The irony is that that particular blog post got about fifty times more readers than I'd usually get. If these idiots hadn't made such a fuss about it, the post would have been read by a handful of my friends and a couple of people who stumbled on it via google, and basically nobody would have noticed it. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2019 16:17:45 GMT
It was probably Mr Young from several different accounts 😂
“Sorry you were so sh*t” is my favourite non apology apology and I will steal it
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5,062 posts
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Post by Phantom of London on Mar 12, 2019 17:05:31 GMT
Yeah it is a daily gripe, dodging all those death threats and that is even before I cleaned my teeth.
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3,580 posts
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Post by Rory on Mar 12, 2019 17:10:52 GMT
Another was headed "WHO THE F*** DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!?!?!"
Patti up to her old tricks again!
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Post by oxfordsimon on Mar 13, 2019 0:12:57 GMT
I wrote a review of student piece of Pinter - which was tough but fair (it was a poor attempt at working with the style that misfired)
About a year later, the director added me on Facebook and asked if I would take the review down because it was being brought up at job interviews where he was being asked what had gone wrong with the show.
I declined saying that I stood by my thoughts - he accepted that and nothing more was said.
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471 posts
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Post by mistressjojo on Mar 13, 2019 0:22:41 GMT
Another was headed "WHO THE F*** DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!?!?!" Patti up to her old tricks again! Wait - isn't that the Malcolm Tucker episode of that very popular genealogy show?  |
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423 posts
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Post by schuttep on Mar 13, 2019 10:57:57 GMT
“Sorry you were so sh*t” is my favourite non apology apology and I will steal it I'm also fond of "I shall lose no time in apologising..." |
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4,156 posts
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Post by kathryn on Mar 13, 2019 14:33:05 GMT
I wrote a review of student piece of Pinter - which was tough but fair (it was a poor attempt at working with the style that misfired) About a year later, the director added me on Facebook and asked if I would take the review down because it was being brought up at job interviews where he was being asked what had gone wrong with the show. I declined saying that I stood by my thoughts - he accepted that and nothing more was said. Interesting that his response to that question coming up was to ask you to take the review down - because surely for the interviewer his actual answer would have mattered less than the fact that he was able to take and respond to criticism thoughtfully and constructively. Wanting you to take the review down suggests that he couldn't actually do that. I've always been most impressed by the creative types who can engage with criticism, and not take it as a personal slight but as a response to their work that can help them develop. Of course it does depend on the criticism itself - critics reveal as much about themselves as the work they are reviewing, and you can never please everyone, nor should you try to. |
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Post by oxfordsimon on Mar 13, 2019 19:10:03 GMT
I just reread the review in question and I was careful not to name check anyone in it precisely to reduce the search engine impact of a negative review.
So I had been sensitive to the future impact that a bad crit can have.
I praised the ambition but felt they had overreached themselves on this occasion.
Having been on the receiving end of negative comments, I know how it feels which is why I always tried as a reviewer to be considerate, constructive and honest. Student theatre is a safe place for people to experiment and to have failures. Everything is a learning opportunity. And learning to deal with good and bad comments is very much part of that as an aspiring director.
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1,127 posts
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Mar 14, 2019 11:55:02 GMT
On the flipside, there are some reviewers/bloggers who are horrendously unprofessional. I helped out SMing on a one-woman fringe show once where a blogger wrote a review that was entirely a hatchet job about the female producer, wrongly credited her as the writer, blamed her by name for technical issues, and didn't mention the director, actress, or the actual writer at all. If you read it and didn't know better you'd assume the producer had written, directed, starred in, and run the sound and lighting desks single-handed!
The production had to contact the editor to ask that at the very least the correct writer was credited.
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923 posts
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Post by Snciole on Mar 14, 2019 12:31:00 GMT
I have had only one demand for a takedown regarding this review viewfromthecheapseat.com/2018/02/08/the-boring-room-vaults-festival/As an editor (I didn't write the review) I refused. There was nothing bad in there (though the producer claimed it had insulted the writer's name!?) and it was a fair review of a show that did badly across the board. In desperation, the complainer tried to argue the review anonymous and unfair. It isn't, it wasn't. The Stage gave it 1 star I wonder if he wrote to them complaining. |
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3,040 posts
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Post by crowblack on Mar 14, 2019 13:43:56 GMT
If they're a young writer/performer it could be devastating, though - it feels gleefully destructive in tone and that opening dig about the writer's name sounding northern is gratuitous and tediously familiar to anyone from the north / with a accent. Not "one of us", say the London arts circle, circling the wagons. |
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923 posts
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Post by Snciole on Mar 14, 2019 13:52:37 GMT
Poor Olly, with his League of Gentlemen sounding name. It oddly wasn't the writer who was offended (and I would have taken it down if he had contacted me directly) but it was another member of the production. I take delight in writing about shows I hate to make up for the awful evening so I get Ed's tone but it seemed to have an effect on reviewers britishtheatre.com/review-the-boring-room-vault-festival/ |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2019 13:55:38 GMT
In fairness by calling it 'The Boring Room' he opened it up to all manner of easy jokes about it in that respect...
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1,972 posts
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Post by sf on Mar 14, 2019 13:57:10 GMT
If they're a young writer/performer it could be devastating, though - it feels gleefully destructive in tone and that opening dig about the writer's name sounding northern is gratuitous and tediously familiar to anyone from the north / with a accent. Not "one of us", say the London arts circle, circling the wagons.
Yes. I've written my share of pans (and been on the receiving end of a couple as well), and I think there's nothing wrong with twisting the knife if you back up each point rather than just writing a string of withering insults, fun as that can be - but as someone from the north who has a slight but perceptible accent, I'm afraid that dig at the playwright's name tells me a great deal about the person who wrote the review, none of it pleasant.
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923 posts
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Post by Snciole on Mar 14, 2019 15:17:29 GMT
In fairness by calling it 'The Boring Room' he opened it up to all manner of easy jokes about it in that respect... Yes, I would never call a play something like "THIS IS AWFUL" because that is all you will think about when you watch the play. |
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4,156 posts
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Post by kathryn on Mar 14, 2019 16:31:32 GMT
A bit like how Shipwreck's long bit about political theatre and how it can never be truly effective made me think, hmm, yes, this isn't really working, is it? Too specific...
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2019 17:04:14 GMT
On the flipside, there are some reviewers/bloggers who are horrendously unprofessional. I helped out SMing on a one-woman fringe show once where a blogger wrote a review that was entirely a hatchet job about the female producer, wrongly credited her as the writer, blamed her by name for technical issues, and didn't mention the director, actress, or the actual writer at all. If you read it and didn't know better you'd assume the producer had written, directed, starred in, and run the sound and lighting desks single-handed! The production had to contact the editor to ask that at the very least the correct writer was credited. There are a number of examples of reviews as a means of furthering a personal dislike by professionals as well. Famously Letts and Simon Stephens, for example. |
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Post by jaqs on Mar 14, 2019 19:47:15 GMT
I wrote a review of student piece of Pinter - which was tough but fair (it was a poor attempt at working with the style that misfired) About a year later, the director added me on Facebook and asked if I would take the review down because it was being brought up at job interviews where he was being asked what had gone wrong with the show. I declined saying that I stood by my thoughts - he accepted that and nothing more was said. Interesting that his response to that question coming up was to ask you to take the review down - because surely for the interviewer his actual answer would have mattered less than the fact that he was able to take and respond to criticism thoughtfully and constructively. Wanting you to take the review down suggests that he couldn't actually do that. I've always been most impressed by the creative types who can engage with criticism, and not take it as a personal slight but as a response to their work that can help them develop. Of course it does depend on the criticism itself - critics reveal as much about themselves as the work they are reviewing, and you can never please everyone, nor should you try to. Exactly, its a normal interview question to ask about things that have gone wrong at work and what you learned, how you did better in the future. Standard way to show growth and resilience. Everyone needs a stinker story in their rep. |
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