Everyone’s a critic. You see a show and decide how much you liked it, where it sits in the pantheon of other productions, whether it was worth the ticket price.
But with over 3000 shows on the Fringe how do you start to choose and how do performances make their mark? Reviews help to light the path to the transcendent theatrical experience, and there is always a reviewer out there willing to take the bullet of a truly terrible show on your behalf.
Like them or loathe them those awarded stars are what it’s all about - or are they? Flash back to the Fringe 1984 and Token University Productions are putting on Generically Angsty. When one, two and no star reviews come in they are, well ... less than kind, singling out lead Keira Cochrane as having a voice for the silent movies, a face for radio and likening her acting to wood. Thus savaged by the critics she turns her back on performing and becomes a savage critic.
Thirty years later she has developed a confrontational Cockney accent and returns as Queen of the Mile, a merciless critic crushing dreams with a smile. Dictatorial over “Spawn of the West End Reviews”, a combination of Mugabe and Pol Pot, she hands out stars based only on nepotism, payments or sexual favours.
When young, enthusiastic Henry Tibbles is thwarted in telling the truth he decides to come out fighting, to say what he wants and be noble and good. It’s no longer business, it’s personal. So sees a standoff between Spawn and “The Critic with No Name”, a Clint Eastwood meets Spiderman hero who asks “Are you feeling objective? Well, are you punk?”.
This new piece of musical theatre is a silly, satirical look at the whole Fringe experience. That said, it does manage to land a few well aimed shots that wound both reviewers and performers alike. It’s a clever idea, nicely constructed and if it does have an axe to grind at least it’s not a generic angsty one. A few gems of one-liners and the wonderfully self-aware romantic sub-plot keep things light.
You may not be humming the songs later but there are several good numbers, though some liberties are taken with scansion. Performances although unlikely to raise the interest of West End agents are good enough and work well within the whole Fringe setting.
So the message is that it’s all about drama and not about stars; companies should go out on a limb and reviews are, after all, only one person’s view.
So, three stars; but that’s only an opinion. You’re almost definitely not going to think one, probably not two. Could be three. Perhaps even four or five. Is this helping?
Show Times: 1 - 23 August (not 3, 10, 17) 2014 at 1.45pm.
Ticket Prices: £9.50 (£7.50)
Suitability: 12+