Actor and stage manager Ryan Rodrigues says no...

When I performed in my first Cambridge show, the excitement of all the things that came with it was almost too much to handle; I mean really, Cambridge theatre is incredible. We get to glam up for fun photo-shoots, wear ridiculous costumes, stay up until ludicrous hours painting set – and to top it all off, after we finally take to the stage, we have the thrilling wait for the reviews. And it is this that I object to. The microcosm we have here in Cambridge is, for all intents and purposes, genuinely wonderful, but reviews are an imperfection that really, we can do without.

Whilst I’d love to believe that everyone who signs up really is the next big name of the reviewing scene, the lack of screening means that almost anyone can do it. ‘That’s great’ you say. ‘What’s wrong with that’, you ask. What we are left with is countless actors being asked to review plays that they themselves are in (the Tab genuinely asked the star of a show last term to review it, on two occasions).

This is especially a problem here in the lovely bubble that is our dear university, where unlike the real world, there is no professional distance between reviewer and actor. What’s to stop someone dedicating all 500 words to commending their roommate’s marvellous performance as Tree #7? Moreover, what’s stopping someone from completely belittling a performance from the show’s best actor, purely because she stole your last tin of spaghetti hoops? Of course, to do such things would be unprofessional, but in the world of student theatre, we are all exactly that: amateurs. Why is the reviewer’s opinion more valid that anyone else’s paying to see the show that night?

Sincerity is another issue with reviews I wish to mention. Imagine, reader, you’ve seen a show. It was great. It filled you with a new-found optimism that there really is hope for mankind after all, and although we may be in questionable times now with performances as creatively, technically and jaw-droppingly brilliant as that, it’s all okay. After staying for a drink or two to congratulate the cast, you arrive home to your laptop to type up the review you promised your friend you would write. It’s 1am. He needs it now. As you start to type, you are filled with a sudden epiphany that crushes your kindred spirit. The best reviewers, nay, the real reviewers, notice the seemingly unnoticeable. They look past the superficial brilliantness and find the crack that lies beneath the bellowing chasm that was tonight’s show. But you thought it was quite nice. What do you do? Do you risk being made a fool of –the new kid in town? Or are you determined to prove yourself as a real reviewer? 

One star. Where were the phallic jokes?

Reviewer and actor Will Popplewell says yes...

Reviews are, in my opinion, worthwhile. They provide useful feedback to cast, crew, and creatives; they can facilitate comparison between productions; and they provide a platform for a wider audience to get involved in the discussion of shows.

When I attend shows as a spectator I often gloss over small conceptual inconsistencies or strange directorial choices, and don’t engage that deeply with the more literary aspects of the show. Conversely, when reviewing I pay much more attention, partly because I want to relay this sort of feedback to the creative team.

Anyone’s friends can tell the lead actress that she portrayed the role fantastically, and this sort of feedback obviously has its place in reviews; it takes a bit more attention to engage with other aspects of the show, and this is a responsibility that I feel reviewers have when attending shows. All of this is part of a larger system of creative feedback, which allows directors and actors to take chances, and make mistakes, in their shows – a process which has eventually led to some stunning Cambridge theatre.

Many reviews read like an advert for the show, promoting the show to boost ticket sales, and a cynical viewpoint might suggest that this is the primary purpose of reviews in Cambridge. With up to four shows on the weekly ADC/Corpus rotation, we do need something to help us decide what to see. As such, whilst reviewers aren’t wrong when they incorporate this, they often end up leaving out more valuable aspects of the review. If we compare these types of reviews with reviews of ‘one night stands’ (smokers, CUMTS Gala night, comedy stand-ups), there is a difference, insofar as the latter tend to engage with the show ‘as a work of art’ – obnoxious as that sounds.

In my opinion if all reviewers worked more holistically, indeed one might say academically, we would still get a sense of which shows we would like to watch, and the quality of the reviews would improve as a whole. It would also, ideally, reduce the element of bias which is apparent in some reviews in the student press.

Whilst reviewing is, and should be, a personal matter, we have an obligation to go beyond ‘I like this but I didn’t like that’. One positive aspect which already reduces the presence of bias in reviews, is the array of student press available to us; even if the Tab, TCS, and Varsity approach reviewing slightly differently, across the three we can often discern a fair balance.

Whilst reviews in Cambridge are far from perfect, they are a key part of a wonderfully unique and vibrant theatre scene at the University. Bad reviews will always happen, I personally was heavily criticised by commenters for one particular review. People do engage with reviews; it is not an exclusive channel between reviewer and producer, who copies and pastes the most flattering sentence onto Facebook, but rather an engaging and wide-reaching process. So this debate over the merit of reviews is good – let’s now channel it into improving them rather than criticising them.