Honour Bayes: Critical star wars

After a fantastic opening year Exeunt (for whom in the interests of disclosure I should say I also write for) is in the process of a facelift. Editor-in-chiefs Daniel B Yates and Natasha Tripney are interested in producing not only a quality publication but also a forward-thinking one. As an outfit striving to be on the frontline of digital criticism, should these old celestial bastions of the establishment play a part of the new format, and if so how?

It is perhaps the second of these questions which is the most interesting. The first one always seems to lead to circular thinking. Critics hate them, claiming that they are reductive and often replace the reading of the actual review itself.

As a critic I can understand that this is not simply a case of concerned self-regard. After reviewing Wilton’s Music Hall’s immersive The Great Gatsby, I was in a genuine quandary over whether the star rating should be for the experience or the show itself. I had adored the audience dressing up and dancing the Charleston in the interval but felt the show lacked so much of the book’s depth. What was a girl to do? In the end my 3 felt like a compromise and an uncommunicative one at that. Whilst the review went into more depth, the rating looming above it revealed neither the show’s problems nor the experience’s joys.

Even in the face of these pitfalls however, others believe they provide an invaluable short-hand. As Mark Shenton admits, critics themselves sometimes communicate with each other through the stars they have given. In this way it seems undoubtable that they are what the reader, whether punter or pro, wants. As a reader myself I can understand this also – who hasn’t been drawn to a 1 star review as much as a 5, whilst shunning the rather ‘meh’ 3’s?

And so we are back to my Gatsby frustrations above and the circle continues.

But what if we were to keep the idea of a shorthand but play with the form? Some of my colleagues at Exeunt proposed some cracking alternatives which I hope they won’t mind me airing here.

Ella Parry-Davies (who joked rather wonderfully “We live in a binary world now, guys, who needs five stars when we’ve got 0 and 1? I’d recommend it. I wouldn’t recommend it.”) suggested that we rate each review with the amount we would pay for it. Whilst this takes away from the autonomy of a star system which goes across the board, in recession hit times it is certainly a contemporary and practical alternative.

Rosanna Hall meanwhile pointed in the direction of film review website, Little White Lies, where they have a rating system of Anticipation, Enjoyment and In Retrospect. As she says very wisely this enables the conversation started in a review to be incorporated into an otherwise static ratings system that currently “demonstrates the dialogue with the production as finished and filed off as a number.” I certainly would have appreciated this method with The Great Gatsby.

Whilst these alternatives are in a way just replacing one reductive short hand with another, they do seem to allow for more complexity than a simple 1-5. It will be interesting to see which, if any, Exeunt goes for.

Meanwhile my personal favourite was The Stage’s Alistair Smith who, in jest, proposed on twitter “…toying with the idea of (for fun) trialling a twitter review system using this instead of star ratings. Thoughts?” I’m all for it.