Seeing stars

If you've been following Skinny Fringe coverage, you may have noticed there are no one star reviews. We’re not publishing any – we don’t see the point.

A 1 star review means there really is nothing to recommend about a show. The act may have taken a brave risk, but they’ve got it wrong and, in the opinion of the reviewer (who’s quite possibly talking bollocks, by the way), should probably go home. Is it really helpful to publish this for all to see?

Of course, some people like reading bad reviews. They love a delicious postmortem full of overly long metaphors in which the writer attempts to show just exactly why they are much, much better at what they do than the performer was. And sometimes, these have their place. I carry with me to this day The Stranger's roasting of Sex and the City 2, a film dripping with cultural imperialism and the most depressing kind of sexism, which spent millions of dollars trying to sell us Möet & Chandon and a Mullerlight.

But this is the Fringe, not the Oscars. These are people who aspire to a pint of Fosters, for Christ’s sake. If you rip a comedian to shreds, they can’t while away their stresses by checking into rehab or buying a baby. They weren’t trying to sell you anything – many aren’t even charging for entry. They were just trying to make you laugh. And they’ll already be proper gutted that they didn’t.

All of the Skinny Comedy content is online (along with a shedload of extra stuff from The Shimmy - check it out) and the internet is already too full of useless vitriol. So we’re with our mums on this one – if you can’t say anything that is genuinely helpful, don’t say anything at all.