Theatre-goers ‘misled’ by Shawshank critic’s quote

Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End is being investigated for "misleading" ticket buyers thinking of seeing its current production, The Shawshank Redemption, by posting a reviewer's quote outside the theatre calling it "A superbly gripping, genuinely uplifting drama".

The line was written by Charles Spencer, theatre critic of the Daily Telegraph, when the play opened in mid-September. Like hundreds of thousands of others, Spencer is an admirer of the Morgan Freeman-Tim Robbins film and, of course, it was the film to which he was referring in such glowing terms, not the play - which he found inferior.

This is what Spencer actually wrote: "The 1994 film... regularly appears at or near the top of polls of the most popular films of all time. I wouldn't place it quite so highly myself but it is a superbly gripping, genuinely uplifting prison drama [our italics] about friendship and the power of hope. And when money is tight, people are more likely to buy tickets for something they already know and love than take a risk on something. In this case, however, I would suggest your cash might be better spent elsewhere. In almost every respect, the stage version is inferior to the movie."

This is not the first time a London theatre has been accused of taking a theatre critic's words out of context to give a false impression of what they wrote. But it is the first time Westminster Tradings Standards has decided to investigate whether the theatre has broken 2008 consumer protection legislation. Their decision could have major implications for anyone who lifts and edits critics' comments - theatres, cinemas and book publishers.

A spokeswoman for Wyndham's told the London Evening Standard today that the words were "just a description of the story" and that nobody had complained to the producers.

Whether Spencer's carefully edited comments did the theatre any good is debatable: the play comes off this weekend after only 10 weeks. Luckily, there's always the video.