Gary Tro

What?? Are you actually asking this question?? Is this like a fidelity test to see if the other questions were answered by a spam-bot?

Fringe Wives Club

To be honest, I find reading reviews quite fascinating. It’s intriguing and sometimes totally illuminating – either it lights up aspects of the show, or the reviewer’s views on the theme or topic, and both can be equally interesting!

Elf Lyons

“An Ordeal” by The Times, I think is both my best and worst review I’ve ever had. I’ve never been able to read the whole review though as it is behind a pay wall.

David Ephgrave

Reviewers are not on my Christmas card list. I’m not sure having someone tell you whether to enjoy a show is a necessary service. It’s all subjective anyway. All the best artists from The Beatles to Morecambe and Wise have been slated; often by critics who never walked the walk themselves. Bad reviews can stifle creativity and, at worst, make performers give up. You should only seek the opinion of those you trust and respect.

Dalia Malek

Reviews are mostly a UK thing and I stopped getting them after I moved, so I only have a small handful to choose from. The best was Steve Bennett from Chortle calling me “a very promising writer.” The worst wasn’t really negative but was just poorly written by some rando.

Chris Henry

When I get a great review, I feel like it’s amazing that someone gets what I’m trying to do. Then when I get a bad review I soothe my ego by telling myself the reviewer doesn’t know what they are talking about.

Bilal Zafar

I ended up in hospital with Pneumonia after last years fringe. Sometimes reviews come out after the fringe and I realised I got my first ever 5 star review when I was in my hospital bed.

Ashley Blaker

It was genuinely thrilling to get a great review on the front cover of the New York Times arts section this month which described my Off Broadway show as being ‘a slickly funny stand-up show’.

The worst review was from a rabbi who in a rabbinic WhatsApp group called me ‘hugely damaging’.

Anna Morris

I do find some reviews are very badly written – ones that basically just describe the entire show in detail (giving away twists) or ones that are very snobby and nasty. There is just no need for it!

Aaron Calvert

If you read a well written review you get a sense of what the show is like and whether you’d like it personally regardless of the view of the reviewer. A poorly written review is a waste of everyone’s time.

Sleeping Trees

In 2010 a ‘whatsonstage’ reviewer hit us incredibly harshly at one point saying we wore “presumingly ironic tshirts” when at the time we just wore our own clothes.

Sameena Zehra

Recently, a punter came up to me and said ‘That was great. It’s like Alexei Sayle became an Indian woman.’ That’s a pretty good review, given that Alexei Sayle is one of my comedy heroes. But it’s also a terrible review, mainly for Alexei Sayle.