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Jo Caird: What Do You Want in a Theatre Review?

What do you want in a theatre review? There aren’t really
any hard and fast rules, but some combination of the following points is
usually about right: a summary of the plot, a rundown of what works and what
doesn’t about the production, details of a particular actor’s outstanding
performance, a bit of history to put the play and playwright in context, a line
of dialogue quoted perhaps to give you a sense of the play’s tone. If the
review is nicely written, so much the better.

All critics have their own way of doing things, tending to
focus on certain elements of a production over others. Publications’ style
guidelines differ too, meaning that a critic writing for different publications
will tweak his or her style according to where the review will appear. Regular
readers get used to their favourite critics’ ways of doing things and learn to
read between the lines of a review, appreciating the finer nuances of the
points made because they are familiar with the particular writer’s taste.

But even if there’s no such thing as a perfect review, there
are plenty of things to steer clear of. Bad grammar, spoilers and clichés are
both inexcusable and easily avoidable. Any decent writer with a basic
understanding of theatre should be able to produce 400 words of prose about a
show without giving away its ending or resorting to the use of phrases like
‘beg, steal or borrow a ticket’ or ‘must-see’ (before you go combing through my
portfolio for clichés, I admit to having resorted to the latter in the past. Sometimes when
it’s late and you’re pushing a deadline it’s possible to persuade yourself that
a cliché is admissible. Do as I say, not as I do).

A less obvious, but equally unhelpful, no-no is referencing
past productions of a play or performance. As already noted, supplying some
historical information is fine. If a play hasn’t been performed for a number of
years, for example, it might be useful for readers to be told a little
something about how a previous production was received. What the lay
reader doesn’t need to know is that the production being reviewed isn’t a patch
on a 1967 version performed in a barn in Somerset, or that the actor playing
the lead doesn’t handle the play’s language with the same lyricism that ­– insert famous actor here ­– did back
in 1981.

In the right context – a feature, blog post or theatre book
– this might be fascinating stuff, but in a review, the point of which is to
help theatre-goers decide whether or not to go see a play, referencing
productions and performances that most readers won’t have seen and will never
get the opportunity to see just feels nostalgic and a tad self-satisfied. Film
reviewers do this all the time, but that’s fine, because readers are able to
watch those films again and make the comparison for themselves. Theatre critics
need to remember whom they’re writing for: helpful reviews are those that focus
on what the reader wants and needs to know about a production; anything else is
just showing off.