About

On the West End or Broadway a show can close overnight after a bad review, such is the perceived value of good or bad press. The reviewer is given the role of expert to cast opinion or to judge the skill on what we might otherwise look at with untrained eyes.

When Simon Callow turns his thumbs down at a singer in X-Factor we assume it is because his expert skills in talent management, to spot a potential million dollar artist.

In the fight for entertainment bucks we look to the taste-makers and fashion-watchers to fast track our way to the best on offer.

And yet aren’t we all experts of sorts?

Experts in our chosen fields of teaching, plumbing, cooking, accounting, coffee-making, medicine, parenting, television watching, procrastinating… the list is endless. We become experts in a field because we’re interested of course, but also because our skills are useful to others.

The expert sees details that the non-expert glances over. They offer insight, a deeper understanding. They reveal the hidden. They allow us to experience what we never knew existed.

Imagine if we were able to invite specialists into every facet of our life. What new insights would be revealed if we could invite an expert into our kitchen, our wardrobe, our bedroom, our emotional lives?

For their upcoming season of performances at The Basement, The Town

Centre will invite a diverse group of specialists to view their work and review it within their field of expertise. How would a lawyer view Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe for example? Perhaps they could tell us who had the strongest case for a lawsuit, or where specifically each couple has broken the contract of marriage. A copyright lawyer might even give us the legal pitfalls on using Virginia Wolfe’s name in the title. A commercial cleaner on the other hand might watch the same show and detail each of incidents where drinks are spilt with instructions on how each surface might be treated to clean it.

If we thought of the show as a blueprint for a building would it survive an earthquake? Or would it get taller and taller like a tower of Jenga blocks until it eventually crashes?

There will be around 30 expert reviewers published online throughout the season as each responds in the style and subject they know best. We hope this will bring new insight to the work, to all of us who have our own area of expertise and to those who may miss the finer points of other disciplines.