[Gayle]

It was not a biased review - it was a review based on 20 years experience of local amateur dramatics. A lot of people got riled by that review and fair enough but at no point did I criticise any of the young people involved - I said many times throughout the review that they did the best they could with the material. I stressed that I didn't think that light opera was suited to that group.

I will also stress that I gave Buddies an incredibly brilliant review for the show they did before that - Oklahoma - because it was an excellent show. If you want people to come and review your shows then you have to accept that they will not give everything a good review. I could have picked out just the good bits from the last show but what would be the point - I gave a fair and balanced review of the show. If you only ever got good reviews how would you know if the reviewer was being genuine.

I will say that Oklahoma was excellent and you can know I meant it but the last one was not to the same standard so you shouldn't expect the same sort of glowing review.

Reviews hurt if they're not complimentary - I know that because I've also had 'bad' ones in the past - but you should never dwell on them just learn from them.