In this Seventh coaching session podcast Ryan James Lock continues to coach me on how to market myself and my work, achieving my big goals, looking at my mindset and tackle my limiting beliefs and overcome procrastination. This week was all about press reviews and how to approach reading\u00a0 and recovering from them. Ryan has a PR background, having had his own business and then moving into celebrity and brand consultancy on how to get a strategy to get into the media and also Ryan himself features regularly across the world. I wanted to ask him about press and reading reviews. I am in a play at the moment\u00a0 and we are getting the press reviews coming through. I have a firm no reading of reviews policy as I do not find it helps me do my job as an actor. Part of the reason I don\u2019t read reviews is my experience in Edinburgh Festivals where you have students reviewing who have no idea of the process nor the craft. I now want constructive criticism only from my director and the writer. Bad reviews don’t help you get on stage and do a great show, yes one is always learning and there are technical issues but the press can even get this wrong, I remembered an example of a Times reviewer saying a certain pop singer was pitchy and me overhearing my very famous and brilliant singing teacher call her management and say \u2018she was perfectly in tune\u2019, I’d trust my old singing teacher more than a reviewer on this \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

I currently have an interesting time with the reviews as I understand we need them for promotion, and I know we are getting as actors great reviews even if they don\u2019t love the play, which people are loving or hating. All artists remember the negative reviews and dismiss the positive ones. Ryan\u2019s response is that a review is just one person\u2019s opinion. What is very dangerous to people who are their own brand,, when you step up on stage and you sing or act, not only are you but you are also the brand, hence you are vulnerable. He knows many people don\u2019t read reviews and it is sensible to ignore them especially if the reviewer is a student who has no real understanding.<\/p>\n

He has done a YouTube video on dealing with bad press, if you have indeed read the reviews:<\/p>\n

1)Be objective in what can I learn from this<\/p>\n

2)Look at the person writing it, do they embody of what you want. He quotes\u00a0 from the film \u2018You Can Heal Your Life\u2019 \u2018Don\u2019t listen to people who don\u2019t have what you want\u2019, if you want riches don\u2019t listen to those who are always poor<\/p>\n

3)To really understand that it is just an opinion. Ryan asks when I say I don\u2019t read them is that because I worry something will hurt or that it just makes me less focused?<\/p>\n

I mention Steven Berkoff, the director\/writer recently on Facebook saying how he doesn’t read reviews as he has so much bad criticism over the years but he had to post an intelligent review as they are so rare. I am very aware how a good review can really help, indeed we have had great reviews\u00a0 and theatres already talking about the show transferring so I am not bitter and twisted on this. However I know great reviews can help the brand, me, sales of tickets etc. So there is an argument to get someone else to read them to see if we use them to promote. Ryan said find either a publicist, a friend, someone who is objective. We all have a sense of insecurity and it is a bad cycle to get into to be allowed to be swayed by negative comments. Wise people aren\u2019t swayed, it is psychological well-being, you should not feel validated if people say you are great and invalidated if they don\u2019t like you.<\/p>\n

I gave an example of hearing a tune \u2018October Arrival\u2019 by Steve Waterman, an amazing jazz trumpeter and asked if I could write some lyrics to it. I then, 6 weeks later, was asked to perform it in front of the 30 piece orchestra with my own lyrics. I was so terrified I couldn\u2019t breathe. We started with me coming in an octave lower than I had meant to. All the way through I was shaking, I came to the middle ten (not 8, it is a jazz tune ;-)) I went to go up to the chord change and my voice broke in that moment but I carried onto the end. I got to the end and a woman came up to me crying, held my hand and said \u2018how beautiful it was, heart wrenching and when your voice cracked with pain I\u00a0 had to cry!\u2019 I personally\u00a0 knew it was because\u00a0 had forgotten how to sing but I still said thank you. I also then heard a recording of it and realised that 3 of the 4 trombones had come in the wrong key at that point, I had cracked my voice to accommodate the extra notes plus I was nowhere near as bad as I thought. For me this is where I really learnt that my opinion of what is happening of stage can be miles away from those in the audience. My perception as an artiste has nothing to do with the audience\u2019s perception. I can think I am brilliant and someone in the room can think I am terrible.<\/p>\n

Ryan mentioned Terri Cole Whitaker, What other people think of me is none of my business\u2019.<\/p>\n

The response of someone to your work is to do with where they are.