The Stage

Twist in the tale

Published Monday 16 November 2009 at 11:00

Tabard has been given call to remember a news story The Stage ran a couple of years ago, headlined “Misquoting reviews to be made illegal”.

The general thrust of it was that lifting choice pieces of quotes from reviews and using them in advertising so that it twisted the author’s meaning was to become illegal. Well, so far, it seems that Westminster City Council, who would be the people responsible for enforcing the new(ish) EU directive, have been slow to act. Perhaps producers have been so well behaved that they haven’t had the need to.

Charles Spencer, however, writing in the Daily Telegraph has highlighted a prime example - The Shawshank Redemption at Wyndham’s Theatre.

He explains: “Outside the theatre there’s a quote from my review in which I appear to be describing the stage show “as a superbly gripping, genuinely uplifting drama.” In fact, I was writing about the original film at that point. And my review continued: ‘In almost every respect, however, the stage version is inferior to the movie.’ How odd that those words were mysteriously omitted from the theatre’s billboards.”

Over to you, Westminster. Tabard’s money is on inaction…