How to react to such reviews? ...Sisters. Photograph: Tristram Kenton
In the midst of Chris Goode's mammoth post, written with his usual ever so-slightly-daunting eloquence, on the press response to his recent production of ...Sisters, an improvised riff on Chekhov at the Gate Theatre, there is a passage on the star ratings it received. ...Sisters managed to bag the whole spectrum from a one-star slating (in the Sunday Times) to a shining five star write-up (though this was from Time Out where five stars doesn't carry quite the same weight it once did, given that they now have a sixth one to play with).
Such a diverse critical reaction just highlights how unhelpful and over-simplistic star ratings can sometimes be. While, on one hand, they do provide a tidy precis of a reviewer's views and can't be quoted out of context, they also, and this is an argument I lean towards myself, encourage rushed assumptions and shallow, skimmed reading. Take away the stars and you are forced to engage with the reviewer's ideas and analysis, but with them it is easy to glance at review and feel as if you have 'read' it. Sometimes the stars are a source of confusion rather than clarity, reviews that appear to be worlds apart in content can settle on the same star rating, while reviews that appear to offer a similar assessment can have differing numbers of stars attached to them. As a commenter on one of Lyn Gardner's recent blogs said, in reaction to a review of Hangover Square at the Finborough Theatre: "I'd imagine companies and directors get a bit dispirited when they hear they've only got 3 stars when the words say something else."
Then, at the extreme ends of the spectrum, you have the five star rating, the highest of all accolades (though Time Out, as mentioned, insists on skewing the situation by adding a sixth star to their rating system, the starred A grade of the arts press). The National Theatre of Scotland's Black Watch was lavishly showered with five-star reviews when it opened in Edinburgh in 2006, and they have trailed it ever since like the tail of a comet. But does such consistently glowing praise actually serve a production well when condensed in this way? Five stars suggests that a thing cannot be bettered; can anything live up to such expectations?
At the other end of the scale one ventures into one-star territory (or in some cases, the rare beast that is the zero stars review - the West End Whingers are enthusiastic collators of this latter specimen). To be awarded one or no stars suggests a production devoid of merit or worth, it is perhaps more damning than any critical assessments could be on its own; the absence of stars speaks for itself, a gaping vacancy.
The Telegraph is, I think, the only major paper that still spurns the star system in its theatre coverage (though the Independent on Sunday has now started using little figures for theirs, either slumped forward with boredom and fatigue or attentively inclined). I wonder how long this will remain the case. When the website I co-edit, having resisted starring our reviews for some time, discussed introducing them, opinion was fairly evenly split on whether it would be a good thing to do, though those who supported the idea eventually won through.
I do concede that in certain situations like the Edinburgh Fringe, where the sheer volume of work can be overwhelming, they can provide a useful tool for producers and show-goers alike, helping them wade through the sea of words, but otherwise I remain unconvinced. Are stars a useful shorthand or do they encourage lazy ways?
