What's wrong with the West End theatre critics?

Ian Senior, publisher, R Cubed News

A widely held view is that theatre critics are necessary. But are they a necessary good or a necessary evil? Many actors and other members of the profession say they never read reviews. Others say they read them but take no notice. A few admit - to closest friends only - that they can be deeply hurt by bad reviews.

A group of people who certainly do read reviews are producers and managers. They know that reviews can have a sharp impact on the box office, particularly bad notices. Collectively the West End's Cretinue - cretinue is the collective noun for a group of critics - can and do kill good productions stone dead.

Napoleon, an excellent musical in the style of Les Miserables, was killed by the critics, not least by Alastair Macaulay of the Financial Times. He said in his review that he hated musicals anyway and that all of them over the past 30 years were rubbish. He specifically named Evita, Les Miserables and The Phantom of the Opera, three shows that have given enormous pleasure to millions of real theatregoers round the world. Alastair Macaulay's self-adulating, sneering and perverse review inspired the founding of R Cubed News, a review of rotten review(er)s which I have published by fax, e-mail and on the web every fortnight since 28 December 2000.

R Cubed has a simple aim: to do unto theatre critics as they do unto others. As the publisher/editor and main contributor, I do not say that my perception of a given production is right and the cretics (sic) are wrong. Instead I attack cretics who sneer, write self-adulatory notices or are just plain uninformed. The language of R Cubed is vicious about the Cretinue in general and individual cretics in particular.
R Cubed holds that theatre cretics are not real theatregoers. They go two or three times a week rather than once or twice a month. They believe they have an ordained duty to tell their readers whether a show is worth going to or not. Many write to preen themselves and to amuse other cretics and arts editors rather than real theatregoers.

The impact of reviews, because of its immediacy, can kill a good show before word of mouth gets round among real theatregoers. By contrast, even rave reviews cannot make successes out of shows which real theatregoers dislike. Sadly the majority of Sondheim's musicals fall into this category. Occasionally the Cretinue slaughter a show but it survives and prospers by word of mouth. We Will Rock You is one such.

What do the cretics themselves think about R Cubed? Some, I know, bitterly hate the newsletter. Others realise that there is a certain justice that they should be on the receiving end of sharp, personal invective. I quote an e-mail to R Cubed from Clive Barnes, who for many years was one of the fabled butchers of Broadway and still writes reviews.

"As a critic myself for the past 52 years first in London, now in New York, I often feel that critics, a thin-skinned breed as you have doubtless discovered, are not criticised enough...All best wishes" Clive Barnes, theatre critic, New York Post

If you want to discover whether R Cubed appeals to your sense of humour it is just a click away at http://www.rcubednews.com/.