Rating Mania! Five Stars if you mention me.

Now that Lyn Gardner from The Guardian has mentioned it, I feel more comfortable blowing off some steam about star ratings. I mostly love the Fringe because it is the only time that anyone pays much attention to the critics, and I repay the compliment by becoming obsessed with the worth of various magazine's output. Gardner is succinct and subtle: she notes that the stars awarded by the newspapers are "different" to those awarded by the Fringe only publications (the temptation to regard The Herald and Scotsman as more important is rarely avoided by those who have got good ratings from them), before piously hoping that audiences recognise this difference.

My ratings rant is best expressed by way of an example.

 I am just out of Formby, written by and starring Ewan Wardrop. It's a jolly little show, tracing the life of Wigan's comedy ukulele strumming film star. It's tough to get tragedy from Formby's life: he was a success, died soon after his wife and kept clear of any big scandals. His wife and manager Beryl is the acknowledged power behind his cheeky chappy persona and (almost rude) tunes: they had good politics (Beryl annoyed the South African regime) and did sterling work during WWII as entertainers.

For me, it's a solid three stars, if we must. Wardrop hasn't quite got Formby's voice or mannerisms off pat, but his time as part of Matthew Bourne's company pays off when he becomes Beryl and knocks out a tap number. Most importantly, he can tell a good story, charm the crowd  strum the Formby way, catching the syncopation that made his numbers stand out from the clod-hopping beat of most ukulele players.

Of course, that three stars has nothing in common with the three stars I'd give to Do Theatre for Hangman. That has a bigger cast, who poke around at the way that words can replace the thing itself, and, using the children's game as a metaphor, question the power of the word and its absence. It's all dark, very Russian and physical theatre. Although both shows gain my approval because of the way they use movement - and I am judging similar qualities, like performance, or use of the space, or script - one's a cheeky half-hour of fun, the other's a pretty serious provocation.

So, even within one critic's little world, there is variation. All that the stars really add is a slight suggestion of quality. The real reason an audience member goes for one show over another is that they are more interested in the content.

Star inflation is only possible to measure if there is a set of values shared by companies and critics - and I don't even see my star rating as meaning the same thing in different genres. Three stars means good enough, four is a bit more exciting, five means it changed my life... and you ought to see them, if you care about the content.

Besides, stars don't make audiences. There's a show that has nothing but four and five star reviews, from the mainstream and Fringe media. I saw it last night, and there were three other people there.

How many people read the reviews? And how many people read the reviews of reviews? I only wrote this to see whether the other critics would find it.

It's The Russian Winter! In August!

Of course, any advice I give is always based on my own failures. So, really, don't overdo the Russian festival in one go. I spent a day at Assembly Roxy, catching the former USSR's finest. And now, I am tired, over-excited and slightly confused about the last few hours. Have I really been to hell and back again, returning as a sunflower growing on a stage covered in shit?

Derevo, Akhe and Do share approaches and flourishes. There is much dust cascading down from on high, white face paint, choreography that stops short of being disciplined dance technique, and an emphasis on the startling visual moment. The highlights of all three shows remain as static shocks in the memory. A scarecrow awakening to daylight, three conspirators swapping words around a table, a name spelled out in threads of light. Taken together, the Russian aesthetic is overwhelming and,, unfortunately, predictable.

Do were up first with Hangman. Perhaps the most thematically ambitious, it took the children's game, conflated it with the brutal occupation, and offered a series of sketches based around the nature of the word as image. Spectral, then rough, it dances around the consequences of using certain words (a hand is nailed to a book at the climax of a game) and the way that the image can replace the thing in itself. On a stage covered in newspapers - themselves oddly fragile against the eternal presence of the internet - Do provoke through veiled threats and the persistent clatter of a typewriter, bringing their fictions to visible and dynamic life.

Assembly Roxy, 3 -27 August


Then Akhe gave me Mr Carmen. The least satisfying of the three, the pair of performers reduced the tale of sex and death and bull-fighting to an elongated bicker between two unsettling clowns. Akhe suffer by comparison to Do - they are slower and more concerned with building up their set, and the narrative of Carmen is reduced to symbols and repeated writing of names. There is a menace in the performer's activies - they are goading each other towards madness - but the recognisable features of the Russian style become disappointingly predictable. The use of the staging, however, is intriguing and suggests that Akhe, who often collaborate with other companies, are more comfortable building than acting.

Assembly Roxy, 3-27 August


If the afternoon was a contest, Derevo won. It's no surprise to me: they have the most choreographic style, and the physical discipline of the performers gives them a visceral hardness. Last time, they dissected love: this time, it's hell, or something imagined by Bosch.

Although the description claims that this is the story of a scarecrow. Fair enough, the main character does stand in a field, rattles tins and has a nest for a hat. But he gets covered in shit, smashes a big melon (its skin illustrated like a globe), dresses up like a demented Roman Emperor, faces off a giraffe/woman/skeleton hybrid and wanders off with a big scythe. The seasons do pass, and it is strong meat: even when Frosty the snowman rolls up (and melts, inevitably), there's no "wonder of nature" subtext.

Surprisingly, the ending is relatively happy - a joyous return of summer. Luckily they get mysterious for the bow, and Derevo disappear (until the next Fringe) to plot the next assault on the mundane surface.


Assembly Roxy, 3-27 August