Reviewing people you know

In community theatre, the cast and the audience are largely from the same community and so it is inevitable that at least half the audience know someone in the cast. With that in mind, there are very few people in the audience who have an objective eye, but more importantly, very few that WANT and objective eye. Many enjoy the show BECAUSE they know someone in it, and after all, does it really matter why they enjoy it as long as they do? It is probably best not to take any gushing praise seriously - it is mostly subjective. It is also best not to take any sharp criticism too seriously - it is almost certainly someone with a chip or a gripe since well balanced, happy people simply cannot be bothered finding the time to denigrate others. So somewhere between lies the truth. Most of the reviews I read contain valid and useful criticism and enough encouragement to recognize the effort that goes into any production at any scale. In many cases, it will point to things that the cast and crew are aware of and are trying to fix, but sometimes it is a fresh eye on something that had not been considered. In any case, constructive criticism is always welcome. Personal abuse should be filtered off this site, firstly because it is nothing more that cyberbullying - no different to the type which has been a problem with school children ( and probably by people with about the same mentality ) but also because it is useless to anyone and quickly causes a review site to degenerate into a "review of the review" page. Most pages have a moderator who should filter out the spiteful reviews - they are not hard to pick. Just a quick note re Tohrukuns "get singing lessons" comment - I think it was meant in a constructive fashion - that improving his singing would round off his performance - and was taken as such by the performer who has fought against the fact that he is an almost pathologically happy, considerate and smiling person who has to play a vile, ruthless villain. Of all the performances in the show, I think our cast as a group are most proud of Russell's performance because he is absolutely unrecognizable from himself when he is in character. There you go - a subjective review can also be valuable if you know how far the person has changed their persona to play a character!