How do you decide what to see at the theatre? Word of mouth v reviews

How do people decide what they are going to see at the theatre? Are reviews still important? Should people trust bloggers? Is it ever wise to trust Lyn Gardner's opinion? What can bloggers do that the mainstream press can't? Those were just some of the questions that arose at West Yorkshire Playhouse on Wednesday where I spent the day as part of the ongoing Cat on a Hot Tin Roof reviewing project.

"I know what I like" was the response of those I met from the Hey Days participants, WYP's flourishing group for the over-55s. For most of them it was apparent that choosing what to go to see was very much a case of what caught their eye in the brochure, but the deciding factor was often a personal recommendation from a friend. There was a salutary moment when a woman admitted that she was a lifelong Guardian reader, but she never read the reviews page.

Perhaps more surprising was talking with the theatre's youth group and discovering just how many of them were quite avid consumers of online reviews, although again word of mouth was a strong factor. In the pre-show discussion I did with members of the public prior to the performance of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, I asked: does Twitter count as word of mouth? The consensus was that increasingly it did. There were lots of local bloggers present and it was encouraging how many were eager to write about theatre, and the willingness of WYP's head of press, Paula Rabbit, to try to help facilitate that. Like newspapers, British theatres are increasingly waking up to the need to build communities of interest around what they do.

In fact it looked as if one project arose directly from the conversation during which I suggested that along with developing a distinctive voice and trusting their own voice, bloggers might best serve themselves, their readers and theatres by covering work neglected by mainstream criticism or approaching shows in a way that just wouldn't be possible for a broadsheet critic. There was an immediate volunteer to try and follow a future WYP production through from its press night to final performance reporting back on how a production had changed and bedded down over that period.

The icing on the cake for me was a chance to see Cat almost at the end of its run, rather than right at the start which is when I most often see WYP productions. The audience gave the cast a mighty standing ovation. The word of mouth should be pretty hot for the final performances. But then the reviews have been pretty hot too.