Love me or Hate me. Both are in my favour...

"If you love me, I'll always be in your heart. If you hate me, I'll always be in your mind."

Theatre has the power to delight and infuriate us. Subjective, interpretive as it is, no one piece will ever please everybody, and nor should it. There's no irony in the symbol for drama - its two opposing masks. The first: comedy - ecstatic with laughter. The other: tragedy - oblique with despair.

The same goes for the industry overall, so here are some things from the past week in 'theatre land' that we love and some bits and pieces that we're less happy about ... purely for the sake of equilibrium, of course.

We love...

-The new cast of Once: Arthur Darvill, hot from Broadway, is playing Guy in the West End for eight weeks only. From what we could gleam at the media preview, it was no ordinary cast change for Darvill and the other new members of the company, but judging from the preview performances we were treated to, we are more hopeful than ever for the future of this delicate drizzly musical. (Or, as I like to call it, the diamond in the rough.) Click to view our exclusive video and judge for yourself. Book tickets at www.oncemusical.co.uk

-Erica Whyman: Deputy Artistic Director to Gregory Doran at the RSC, Erica Whyman has spoken out about her amition to "create dialogue between the Shakespeares and new work." She is focused on and passionate about exploring 'other' work beyond the classical. See our article on equality to find out why this pleases us so much and read more about Whyman's initiative here.

-Another openin', Another show: If you're a musical theatre fan it's been a good week. I Can't Sing opened to critical acclaim. Hurrah! With the closure of Stephen Ward and From Here to Eternity we had the predictable hand-wringing about audiences unwilling to trust new material, and then along comes I Can't Sing and kicks that theory into a tin bucket. It's early days yet, but it's looking like commercial and critical success can go hand in hand, despite what we're told. Here's a new show, new material, new writing and the audience have taken to it with their hearts and their pockets. Maybe what audiences really respond to is risk-taking instead of the same old, same old? See review here:

-Susannah Clapp on Blithe Spirit. Blithe Spirit, starring Angela Lansbury, opened over a week ago now but of the wide-spread coverage this popular play obtained we were particualrly impressed by Clapp's considered and contextual review here in The Observer. It's worth a read for the background information alone. As more and more nationals divest themselves of arts coverage it's wonderful to read a piece that is given space and column inches to explore the importance of theatre.

-The new Ceiling at the Apollo Theatre: We're obviously far from pleased that the original fell down in the first place, but as far as replacements go, this cyclorama of the night sky doesn't look too shabby.

And now for the things that we could live without...

-Limited Exposure for Brilliant New Writing: The One, by Vicky Jones at Soho Theatre came to the end of its run this weekend. This brilliant piece starring Rufus Wright and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, exploring the concept of modern day romance, was described by our writer, Alex Delaney, as "exhilarating yet exhausting" and "staggeringly well-written" in her review here. This play surely won't be put to rest indefinitely, it's just infuriating that more people haven't had the opportunity to see it as of yet. If I was more naive, I would spout something about the play being so good that it should be transfered to the West End. But no, I'm all too aware that the industry doesn't work that way. The West End isn’t a geographical location, it’s a multi-million point industry that is run, not by actors and creatives, but by producers and investors and money-men. They’re looking for a show that is a guaranteed commercial success first and critical success second.

-Bloggers Behaving Badly: It's not ok to publically critise a production if you saw it prior to opening night: A show is likely to experience technical difficulties during previews. Isn't that the point of them? As eager as you might be to get a glimpse of a big new West End musical, people's opinion shouldn't forever be coloured by the problems that inevitably arose during its open rehearsals. If you see a preview and pay preview ticket prices, reserve judgement until you see the finished product. You wouldn't call flour and milk a cake, would you?

-Fatal Attraction: Stephen Fry loved it. No-one else did. Is an 80's film really the way forward for West End theatre? Let's stop imitating and start innovating. What was it we said about risk earlier? See Michael Billington's thoughts here.

- Twitter Accounts for Shows: Attempts at Twitter humour might be fun and of interest to some followers but this is not the same as marketing a show. Retweeting every mention and creating a network of inter-complimentary tweets - twanking (Twanking, verb: retweeting praise) all just contributes to an already over-congested sea of noise.

By Emily Hardy and JBR

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