Comedian "Makes Live Comedy Thrilling" – you can quote me on that.
The problem of taking review quotes out of context isn't going away. It's probably getting worse
Shaparak Khorsandi has just announced a new tour, entitled Scatterbrain. The title, presumably, is a reference to her adult diagnosis of ADHD, which finally explained to her why her thoughts would hop around and she would have difficulties settling on one idea.
In the publicity for the show there's a quote from me - "Makes live comedy thrilling". It's a quote that Khorsandi often uses. I've just checked back and I wrote it in a review of her show at the Soho Theatre in the halcyon days of 2012 (oh to go back there now, if only we’d known…)
The reason her performance made live comedy so thrilling for me that night was because Khorsandi seemed unable to focus on any single train of thought and was completely unpredictable. In an entertaining way, I should add. I love a bit of spontaneity in my comedy shows and you get a lot of it with Khorsandi. I'm no doctor but maybe that night at Soho in 2012 was a sign of her ADHD.
So I'm more than happy for Khorsandi to use the quote. But for a long time there has been a problem of comedians – and of course performers in general – taking quotes out of context. In 2011 the Guardian's Michael Hann saw his name under the quote "Rock'n'Roll Debauchery" outside the theatre where the show Rock of Ages was on. What Hann actually wrote was "It's a very peculiar show indeed, with an unvarying and unpleasant tone of careless sexualisation. Rock'n'roll debauchery is presented as the pure and innocent way of dreamers."
Hann gave the show one star. But, of course, inventive PRs/performers can even make something out of a one star review. The late comedian Jason Wood received a single thumbs up for his Edinburgh Fringe show one year from the Scotsman. So what did he put on his posters? "A star". Well, nobody could say he was telling a lie, maybe just being a bit naughty.
Sometimes it's a bit of a cat and mouse game between critic and artist/publicist, with the critic being careful not just to write an incisive review but also not to leave something in a bad review that someone looking a good quote can lift out.
I'm always careful about this, but in 2020 I wrote something in a good review that I knew full well would come back to bite me but I simply couldn't resist it. It was in the middle of Covid and the Edinburgh Fringe was effectively cancelled with indoor gigs banned, but creative comedian Nathan Cassidy happened to be near to Scotland in August and had an idea...
He performed his show as a one-off in the beer garden at the Three Sisters pub in Cowgate. I went all the way to Edinburgh to see it because I thought it would make a good story and The Times commissioned me to review it. It was an enjoyable show but one that might have been lost among a thousand shows in a normal Edinburgh. I gave it a positive review and could not stop myself from writing "best show on the Fringe". Everyone knew at the time it was the only show on the Fringe. Needless to say the quote has popped up on Casssidy’s posters since then without mentioning that nothing else was on.
The problem of taking quotes out of context is up there with quotes created by AI and quotes from passing members of the audience who are vox-popped. But at least Cassidy and Wood used some imagination. Like another show which I won't name which claimed to have had five stars – well, it did have five stars if you added the one star review and the four star review together.
But is it 'cheating' to use an old quote like Khorsandi has? Not really. The only time I consider old quotes cheating is when solo acts who have previously been in sketch groups – no naming and shaming here – use quotes from their ensemble shows to promote their solo shows.
Maybe performers should take a leaf out of Stewart Lee's book. He always sticks a bad line alongside a good line on his posters. Others prefer to play more fast and loose with the truth. I once gave a comedian some advice on Twitter about how to be a success and said: "do good work…my invoice is in the post" – he suggested that he might even fillet that and put "Good…voice" on his poster.
Taking review quotes out of context isn't going away. In fact another Brexit benefit is it’s more likely now we’ve left the EU. In his column in The Stage critic David Benedict recalled writing of a show ‘If schoolboy innuendo is your bag, book now.’ only to see simply ‘Book Now’ quoted outside the theatre. This case was cited in an EU directive on false advertising, but post-Brexit EU directives no longer apply here.
There’s an argument that it could still be actionable, possibly on the ground of mis-selling but it still continues. If anything it's probably going to get worse – I recently heard there are more shows on the Edinburgh fringe this year than ever before. You can't blame acts trying to do anything to stand out from the crowd. I’m surprised nobody has ever asked if there is a male Scottish person in their audience, got them to big up their gig and then put on their flyers “Five Stars – Scotsman”
Khorsandi does have other more recent quotes to publicise her new tour of course. She's a great performer who delivers something distinctive and fresh every time while still retaining that freewheeling core that I was so impressed by back in 2012. I like to think that she is still using my quote because I somehow captured her essence in those four words.
Shaparak Khorsandi’s tour dates are here
picture by Steve Best