EVERY theatregoer suspects that the glowing tributes outside promising a “thrilling!” or “sensational!” evening may be a little economical with the truth. According to a Times survey, the true picture is far worse: there is as much fiction on the advertising boards as on the stage.

More than one third of West End theatres have been found to use highly selective quotations, from the optimistic to the downright misleading. One of the most blatant offenders is Sinatra, a musical mixing footage of the late singer performing alongside a live band. This show claims to have been praised by The Observer as having “energy, razzmatazz and technical wizardry”.

A less concise extract shows the reviewer’s true opinion. As Sean O’Hagan really put it: “I couldn’t help feeling that, for all the energy, razzmatazz and technical wizardry, the audience had been shortchanged.” He also said it was the “longest three hours I have spent in a theatre” and wondered if he had “gone to showbiz hell, a place where the show must go on . . . and on . . . and on”.

Dewynters, the promoter for the show, also boiled down Clive Davis’s two-star review in The Times as: “I defy you to sit still during the orchestra at full blast.” A more revealing comment from Mr Davis was: “The real mystery is why someone as gifted as [director] David Leveaux ever bothered to sign up for this shoddy venture.”

The same promoter was also responsible for We Will Rock You, Ben Elton’s musical inspired by the songs of Queen, which uses an endorsement from The Times’s one-star review. Caitlin Moran did write that the “massive plasma screens are killer-diller” — but as a parenthesis within a damning sentence. “Ultimately, for all its stunning looks — the massive plasma-screens are killer-diller, and all the cast have good shoes — We Will Rock You is just too straight. The script remains little more than two-minute blasts of knob gags and misplaced polemic between songs, and the musical numbers have nothing to do with the script. I’m sure that Freddie [Mercury] would have bunked off halfway through . . .”

Ms Moran said that she would complain to the promo-ter. “That was probably the worst review I’ve ever given anything,” she said. “I see that as a slur on my reputation. No wonder people haven’t been trying to chat me up for the past few years — they think I like We Will Rock You.”

Anthony Pye-Jeary, the managing director of Dewyn-ters, said that using quotations in such a selective manner was standard practice. “If the words are in the review, that is invariably fair game,” he said. “If a show hasn’t got any good reviews, you put up the best you can from what you’ve got. We’d be a bit bonkers to use the negative stuff.”

It is not just glitzy musicals that are affected. On the Third Day, a play that came to the West End after winning a Channel 4 reality television show, uses an “endorsement” from the Mail on Sunday: “Kate Betts . . . has a vivid sense of the possibilities of theatre.” It fails to mention the next sentence: “But, as yet, On the Third Day is all over the place, too raw, too ragged and too full of Whistle Down the Wind whimsy for exposure in the brutal West End.”

Some musicals, such as Guys and Dolls, use quotes from earlier versions. The quotation from The Sunday Times that the production has a “brilliant ensemble” refers to three actors — Douglas Hodge, Jane Krakowski and Jenna Russell — who are no longer in the show.

Of the 27 theatres visited, 11 gave the impression that the reviews had been more positive than they really were. However, the practice is not illegal. Trading standards officers for Camden and Westminster councils said that the signs did not breach the Trade Descriptions Act. The Advertising Standards Authority also said that the quotes were outside its jurisdiction because they are not paid-for advertising. A spokeswoman for the Society of London Theatre said that it had no code to protect consumers from being misled.

Still, compared with Broadway, West End promoters are models of self-restraint. In 1961 David Merrick, the Broadway producer who was christened The Abominable Showman, arranged for seven members of the public who had the same names as New York’s theatre critics to give rave reviews for Subways Are For Sleeping. The reviews were then printed in an advertisement, which received so much publicity that the show lasted for six months.

OUT OF CONTEXT

‘[The songs] remind you of how fabulous Queen were . . . But it’s hard to see the point of making a musical out of them when you can simply go out and buy a record.’
Fiona Sturges, The Independent, on We Will Rock You

‘Dancing in the Streets will be perfect for hen parties, Motown addicts and for a sweaty summer bop.
But it is not drama, may not even be proper art, and real music lovers will get a more satisfying hit from attending a proper concert by original singers, rather than this ersatz homage.’
Quentin Letts, Daily Mail

‘Frank Loesser’s great musical from 1950 is hilarious . . . Grandage’s production often falls somewhat flat . . . From where I was sitting, the orchestra sounded as if they were all trapped in one loudspeaker.’
Kate Bassett, The Independent on Sunday, on Guys and Dolls

‘Perennially popular entertainment . . . now seems to drift rather aimlessly from anecdote to reminiscence.’
Nicholas de Jongh, Evening Standard, on Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell

‘Cast . . . kicks up a high-octane storm . . . The non-musical moments contain a lot of badly placed emotional gloop for the leads to negotiate . . . Derek Hough’s Ren . . . is boy-band bland and doesn’t appear in total control of his coiffure.’
Fiona Moutford, Evening Standard, on Footloose