When I am sending an email I am in the physical workplace. I believe human beings are nearly always in the physical workplace, working with processes and content that IS in the digital workplace. When I am replying on a forum I am in the physical workplace but the metaphor of “forum” inspires my imagination a little more and I will tend to imagine my “avatar” (more or less) as “in” the forum. By the time we have several metaphors such as “Second life” and “Second life personum” etc, there is a possibility that I have imagined an aspect of my self that is a rendition of my self INTO a digital space. Here I exist in the physical workplace and in an imagined/projected “other” space. In the Matrix, this complete projection involves a forgetting of the physical space, at least for a time – a full projection or transference.

In my view, the large disappointment of virtual spaces such as Second Life lies in the fact that human beings are essentially clumsy physical beings. We don’t render well in digital spaces where processes can be much less clumsy than we ourselves. So, the digital workplace is two fold in my own ideal view of it. It is a physical place where we engage with digital content, process and technology.

And it is an ab-human place, where the citizens are content, and processes help content to interact, mapping genomes, working through decision models, behaving in artificially intelligent ways, and interfaces allow human beings, as “farmers”, to plant, tend and harvest what is there.

FringeReview is an online reviews publication based at http://www.fringereview.com

We’ve been going about 5 years and cover the UK – Brighton, Edinburgh and London mostly.

We are a kind of “good food guide” to theatre, seeking out and only publishing reviews of recommended theatre (three stars or above rated shows). Shows falling below our standard are offered private feedback from our reviewer. About half take up that offer!

Why don’t you publish reviews of shows getting less than three stars?

We seek out good theatre and our unique position is to help our readers to decide what to see, not what not to see. There are many publications which rubbish shows as well as praising others. We make a selection. You can come to our publication and get trusted recommendations, among a whole range of possible shows, of what we think is worth seeing. We’ve decided to publicly seek out and celebrate the good in theatre.

What areas do you cover geographically?

Currently we review in London all year round,  Edinburgh all year round and during the Fringe in August, Brighton all year round and its Fringe in May, Oxfringe in March/April, some selected areas in the UK, mostly Leeds at the moment.

We have plans to extend to more of the UK, as well as launching in New York, Amsterdam, Berlin and Australia during 2010/11.

Who edits FringeReview?

The London editor is Skye Crawford. Skye is a producer and columnist for Aussietheatre.com.  Our Brighton and Edinburgh editor is our founder, Paul Levy. Paul is director of Rational Madness Theatre and a writer in the field of organisational theatre.

Who owns FringeReview?

FringeReview is currently owned by its founder, Paul Levy who shares leadership with the editorial team. We have plans to set up FringeReview as a social enterprise. It receives sme sponsorship from CATS3000. Ltd.

What do you and don’t you cover?

We cover all forms of Fringe theatre. We don’t cover dance or stand-up comedy. We don’t usually cover, say a West-End London show, unless it has once had a Fringe run, or might be of special interest to Fringe audience. Fringe theatre is really theatre that takes place off-West end.

We don’t review pure stand-up comedy but would review sketch or character comedy. There’s no absolute line but the key thing is that the show has a significant theatrical element in it. Standing up and telling  jokes isn’t theatre to us. Standing up and playing comedy characters is, for us, theatre. Dance which has a theatrical element to it (which is a lot of dance) is also reviewable by us. A live musical gig isn’t reviewed by us – a  musical is.

Where does your funding/revenue come from?

FringeReview is currently a voluntary organisation receiving some sponsorship from CATS3000 and other organisations. We also generate a small amount of advertising revenue on our site. This goes towards covering our costs, with a longer term aim of using surplus revenue after costs to fund theatre projects all over the world.” We are focused on non-for-profit but generating a surplus to “put back” into the theatre community.

Do I qualify to be a FringeReview reviewer?

FringeReview reviewer’s are people in the theatre field.

Writers, Directors, Producers, Writers on theatre – essentially, theatre practioners

We tend not to work with Journalists unless they have theatre experience and the main focus of their writing is about theatre

How do I become a reviewer for FringeReview?

Read the documents on this site (see the right hand section under REVIEWER RESOURCES and apply with a sample of your writing to Skye Crawford (skye@fringereview.co.uk) in London, and Paul Levy (paul@fringereview.co.uk for all other regions.

Will I get paid as a reviewer?

No. We are a voluntary organisation. The benefit you get is to see some terrific theatre and get a free ticket in (often two in London and Brighton, one at Edinburgh Fringe)

Isn’t there a conflict of interest between being a reviewer and working in the world of theatre?

There is a potential conflict of interest, though we have strict rules about not reviewing any shows in which you experience a conflict of interest: a show on at the same time or in the same venue as a show you are involved with; a show that has friends or recent professional colleagues in etc.

We are all adults and we expect our reviewers to be self-aware and not engage in reviewing where there might be a perceived conflict of interest. We also trust our reviewers to behave ethically and, if in doubt, to ask another reviewer to review the show.

If you don’t feel you can be self-disciplined in this way, then it is better not to review for us. In over 800 reviewed shows, we’ve only ever had a complaint, or had to intervene because of conflict of interest about 5 times.

If we discover bias due to this issue, we pull the review immediately and attempt to set things right.

How do you decide what shows to see?

FringeReview has an interactive web site which operates behind the scenes of our main web site. Here we interact with each other as reviewers as well as allowing companies to post their show info etc and for performers and audience to interact with each other. On this site we have private groups for our reviewers, organised by region. Our regional editors regularly keep a master list of shows available for reviewer. Reviewers can put their names by shows they want to review on a first come, first served basis. No one is allocated shows to reviewer. So a FringeReview reviewer is reviewing your show because they want to be there. Once a reviewer has committed to reviewing a show, they are committed to doing it. Even though our reviewers are volunteers, we expect them to behave professionally at all times and meet their obligations as if they were full employees.

Please post any further questions below and we’ll add them in with responses.

Read our article on the role of preview nights:

http://www.fringereview.co.uk/articleView.php?title=To%20Pre%20or%20not%20to%20Pre%20-%20that%20is%20the%20question&articleItem=86

“A pile of theatrical poop”

“The best sleep I have ahd in years”

“About as physical as a cloud – one star”

I always find it ironic and amusing that a publication such as Three Weeks, which has a team of mostly young writers, learning the media ropes, is villified if a review is very negative and trumpeted as an organ of taste and distinction (not to mention expertise and wisdom) if a review hits five stars. We get VERY subjective when we are “subject” to being made an “object” of someone else’s critique, especially if it is very negative.

Early in a run, a one-star or damning review can feel devastating, even disastrous. The old americanised adage “Get over it!” is mostly true here. We need to move on quickly, take on board any genuine criticism, either stick to our guns, or improve the product!

Most negative reviews often do still contain a nugget of praise and these can be culled and put onto our posters, even if the rest of the review isn’t good. The vast majority of the public won’t read the whole review, or even clock its existence,  but they may see your posters or flyers.

Most of all, remember this: A bad review is not the end of the world, is not seem by most potenial audience, and shouldn’t get you down too much.

If a review is nasty and destructive, again I would recommend just moving on from it quickly. Editors are very, very reluctant to pull reviews, even if they are tripe, or just plain nasty. Though it has been done. The show “Bonnie in Brighton” had a hateful review pulled from the Scotsman by an editor who agreed that Brighton bashing seemed to the heart of the review, with little genuine critique of the show.

If you have faith in your show and believe it to be quality work, a bad review will probably be a rogue review and you’ll get better ones coming along soon enough. Be calm and patient. In Fringe festivals, many reviewers are young would-be journalists cutting (and sharpening) their critical teeth at your expense and there’s little to be done about it. If you invite them in…

So, you notice a terrible review of your show. There it is, on paper, and online.  One star. What do you do?

Try to extract any good quotes from it and use them. Don’t be blind to the whole review. Have faith in your work. Take a good hard look at the review and see if there is anything useful you can learn from it, anything that should be taken on board. Get someone you trust, not involved in your show to read it and see if they can help you be objective about what you are reading.

See past the irritation and anger or disappointment you feel. But most of all, remember, it won’t kill off your show. Though your own negative reaction to it  might!

If you get a lot of negative reviews then there’s a sign that either:

1. You might be way ahead of your time or so amazingly different that NO ONE GETS IT. In this case, stick yo your principles – good will out one day!

or

2. Your show needs some radical improvement, as several different critical opinions are negative about it. In this case look for common themes and work with director, stage crew and cast to improve it.

Build in the possibility your show may need some work.

Reasons for a rogue poor review might include:

- the reviewer is more interested in harsh journalism than real critique

- the reviewer has a conflict of interest and, for some reason, is bashing your show for a hidden motive

- the reviewer is biased, bigoted and hostile to your show’s style or genre

- the reviewer has personal problems, is depressed or generally a very negative person

Reasons for a genuinely written poor review

- your show has weaknesses that you haven’t planned for

- the venue didn’t work in favour of your show

Be open to what the review says, even if you don’t agree with it. Be prepared to ride out the storm, or be open to change and improvement. Most of all, move on quickly and look forward to the next, better review.

We’ve put a lot of work into creating a “jump station”, a one-stop link to all of the review publications you might submit to for a review. They’re all collected here:

Also have a look at our tips for writing a press release.

Welcome aboard!

To get you up and running on FringeReview there are two tasks for you to complete. The first is to get up and running on the FringeReview forum here.

Simply register/join and keep a note of your username (your email) and password. Once you’ve joined you need to go to the “groups” tab along the top of the forum and select the “Reviews Masterlist” group you want to join. Select “apply to join” and within 24-48 hours you’ll be a member. After that time you’ll be able to go to that group and you’ll see a new “edit” button at the top of the masterlist of shows available for review”> Click edit which will open up the list and put your name beside “I AM REVIEWING THIS SHOW: your name” or (for Edinburgh which is a long list of shows)  replace “???” with your name.

The shows are listen in alphabetical order and if a name is already beside a show, that show is taken.

At the bottom of the list is a “SAVE” button. Scroll down and remember to save the list. You can also put in show details of shows not on the list where you’d like someone else to review it. This way we all keep the list up to date as a team.

Don’t hog the list!

It’s that simple.

So, that gets you onto our reviews master list.

The second stage involves posting your reviews, once you have seen a show. This is done on the main FringeReview site here.

For this site you’ll need a different user name and password which you’ll need to agree with one of the editors (mail skye@fringereview.co.uk for London and paul@fringereview.co.uk for all other regions).

Once you have that, you find the “login” at the very bottom right of the main FringeReview site (NOT the forum site).

Once you’ve logged in you full out the form according to our template. We brief all new reviewers on this process, so contact us to arrange a 15 minute briefing. This is a suggested template.

The form is very easy. Remember to always write your review in Word or Wordpad first so you have a back up. Online posting is always a bit dangerous without a backup first!

Please note:

If your show is NOT three stars are more, please don’t post a review – you’ll  need to contact the group and let them know the show didn’t reach 3 stars and then offer the feedback privately, if they want it. (Details here).  There is a standard letter in this resources section here

A show or venue should ALWAYS know you are reviewing the show for FringeReview before it goes on the site. We never review a show without the venue/company being informed.

Reviewing is unpaid, though of course, you get your free ticket to the show.

You agree to post the review, according to our policy within 48 hours of seeing a show.

Reviewers on FringeReview know their theatre and work, or have recently worked as theatre practioners – writers, directors, theatremakers, performers.

To apply, email us as follows:

Skye Crawford to join the London team:  skye@fringereview.co.uk

Paul Levy to join our Brighton, Edinburgh or New York team: paul@fringereview.co.uk.

Our editorial team consists of: Paul Levy, Skye Crawford, David Sheppeard, Honor Bayes and Alice Booth.

Send us a C.V and a sample of recent writing, ideally a couple of theatre reviews.

We’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

It’s very important you read the documents on this resource site, especially our reviews policy which you’ll have to agree to, before writing for our team.

So, to summarise:

1. Read our reviews policy

2. Ensure you meet our requirements listed above

3. Drop us an email with CV and writing samples attached.

We look forward to hearing from you.

1. You do not post a review. Instead you contact the company directly (if  the company didn’t provide contact details, the go via the venue and/or the promoter) and inform them that, in accordance with FringeReview’s policy, the show did not meet our three-star threshold of a recommended show. Offer to give feedback if the company is open to it. They may not be, in which case, the matter rests there.

There is a FringeReview standard letter you can send here.

In the end, it is up to you how you contact them, but contact them you must. Do not give feedback without first asking whether the company/performer wants the feedback.

Some companies are very open and responsive to feedback, others not.

You can also use your own discretion. If you want to contact by phone, this is also okay as long as, with all communication, you observe feedback.

If a company complains about the feedback or their less than three star rating and you need support, contact one of the FringeReview editors.