How Theatrical Reviews Explain Subjectivity in Peer Review: A Cross-Disciplinary Look

Hook: Why you still lose sleep over peer review subjectivity

Authors, editors, and early-career researchers tell a familiar story: a manuscript that seems methodologically sound is rejected because reviewers "didn't like the framing," while another paper with weaker methods is praised for being "compellingly argued." This mismatch—where tone, interpretation, and reviewer expectation influence outcomes as much as evidence—drives confusion and delays across disciplines. Using the the 2025 Gerry & Sewell theatre review as a focused case study, this article shows how lessons from the humanities illuminate hidden sources of subjectivity in peer review and offers practical, cross-disciplinary strategies to improve evaluation standards in 2026 and beyond.

The Gerry & Sewell review: a compact case study in interpretive critique

The Guardian's 2025 review of Jamie Eastlake’s Gerry & Sewell described the piece as a "tragicomic search for a Newcastle United season ticket," noting it "mixes together song, dance, comedy and dark family drama, with incohesive results." The reviewer foregrounded tone—"the play has its own rags-to-riches story" and that its "tone wavers between comedy and tragedy"—and weighed adaptation choices, local politics, and emotional resonance rather than documenting an objective checklist of dramaturgical criteria.

"The play... mixes together song, dance, comedy and dark family drama, with incohesive results."

That sentence encapsulates how humanities reviews often operate: they are interpretive, comparative, and tonal. A theatre critic's job is to judge aesthetic coherence and audience impact; the review's persuasive power comes from voice, narrative, and cultural framing. The same tools that make a theatre review compelling—contextualization, rhetorical stance, evaluative adjectives—are the same sources of perceived subjectivity when similar modes leak into academic peer review.

Humanities versus STEM: different expectations, similar vulnerabilities

To understand cross-disciplinary differences, contrast the humanities review above with the typical STEM referee report. STEM reviews prioritize reproducibility, methods, and data. They often follow a checklist: are experiments replicable, are statistics valid, are raw data and code available. Humanities reviews prioritize interpretation: is the argument persuasive? Does the reading illuminate context? Is the writing compelling for intended audiences?

• Humanities: interpretive frameworks, rhetorical evaluation, nuance in tone, positionality declarations are common.
• STEM: method validity, reproducibility checks, standardized reporting formats (e.g., CONSORT, PRISMA), and neutral or technical tone.

Both systems face the same underlying vulnerability: when assessment criteria are implicit rather than explicit, reviewer bias and divergent expectations fill the gap.

How subjectivity and tone manifest in peer review

Subjectivity appears in multiple, measurable ways:

1. Evaluative language: Words such as "compelling," "incohesive," or "insufficient" carry different weight depending on reviewer temperament and disciplinary norms.
2. Scope and audience assumptions: A reviewer may expect narrow technical contribution while the author frames work as interdisciplinary public scholarship.
3. Visibility of norms: If journals do not publish review criteria, reviewers apply unstated heuristics that vary widely.
4. Positional bias: Reviewers' institutional, cultural, or theoretical commitments influence judgments—e.g., favoring canonical approaches over experimental ones.

The Gerry & Sewell example shows how a reviewer’s assessment foregrounding tone and narrative—appropriate for theatre criticism—could look arbitrary in a different context. But that same sensitivity to audience, atmosphere, and broader meaning can be useful to STEM reviewers when assessing interdisciplinary work or broader impacts.

2026 trends shaping how we handle subjectivity

Several developments from late 2024 through early 2026 reshape the landscape of peer review:

• Open peer review and transparency continue expanding. More journals publish review reports, rebuttals, and editorial decisions, making tone and reasoning visible to readers.
• AI-assisted triage and screening (for methodological red flags, plagiarism, and missing data statements) are mainstream. These tools free reviewers to focus on interpretation but can also introduce new algorithmic biases if unchecked.
• Cross-disciplinary rubrics and modular review templates have been piloted by several publishers to accommodate diverse evaluation standards more transparently.
• Registered reports and reproducibility badges move beyond experimental sciences; qualitative registered protocols and data-sharing for digital humanities gained traction in 2025 and continue growing in 2026.
• Ethical and authorship standards (e.g., wider adoption of CRediT roles and transparent contribution statements) reduce ambiguity about credit and responsibility.

What peer review can learn from the Gerry & Sewell review

Three concrete lessons emerge from treating the theatre review as a mirror for peer review subjectivity.

1. Make interpretive stance explicit

In humanities criticism, reviewers often acknowledge their perspective—ideological, regional, or methodological—implicitly through tone. Peer review can borrow that transparency: ask reviewers to include a one-paragraph positionality statement describing their interpretive frame and potential conflicts. This clarifies how their commentary relates to the work's aims.

2. Use structured narrative where appropriate

Good theatre reviews combine descriptive scene-setting with evaluative commentary. For manuscripts, a structured review template—"summary, strengths, weaknesses, context, recommendations"—lets reviewers keep persuasive voice while anchoring judgments to explicit criteria. This hybrid preserves disciplinary nuance but limits unchecked subjectivity.

3. Respect audience and purpose

Theatre reviews address public audiences; academic reviews serve editors and authors. Sometimes reviewers conflate the two. Journals should define the review's intended audience (editorial triage vs. feedback to authors vs. public transparency) and tailor guidance accordingly.

Actionable strategies to reduce harmful subjectivity

Below are practical, field-tested interventions editors and review teams can implement immediately.

For journal editors

• Adopt a modular review form: include mandatory sections for methods (or interpretive framework), evidence, and contribution; optional sections for literary or rhetorical evaluation in humanities articles.
• Require brief positionality and conflict-of-interest statements from reviewers.
• Publish exemplar reviews (anonymized) that model constructive tone and transparent reasoning.
• Pilot double-stage review for interdisciplinary submissions: initial methodological screening by a technical reviewer, followed by interpretive assessment by a humanities scholar.

For reviewers

• Start with a neutral summary paragraph that demonstrates you understood the manuscript's aims.
• Use the "evidence then evaluation" pattern: list facts or citations from the manuscript before giving an evaluative statement.
• When using evaluative language, pair it with concrete examples: instead of "incohesive," cite specific scenes, sections, or analyses that felt disconnected.
• Flag interpretive disagreements explicitly: state whether you disagree on grounds of evidence, method, or theoretical stance.

For authors

• Anticipate diverse audiences: include a one-paragraph "audience and contribution" statement in your cover letter describing disciplinary norms and the intended readership.
• For interdisciplinary work, attach a short methods appendix that clarifies inferential steps and epistemic standards borrowed from other fields.
• When responding to reviews, map each reviewer claim to a concrete revision or rebuttal and avoid personalizing critiques of tone.

Checklists and templates you can apply today

Below are compact templates to reduce ambiguity. Feel free to adapt to your journal or lab.

Reviewer positionality statement (2–4 sentences)

• My disciplinary perspective: e.g., cultural studies / experimental physics.
• Relevant prior work and potential conflicts: e.g., co-authorship or close theoretical alignment.
• Interpretive lens used to evaluate this manuscript (e.g., historical, statistical, qualitative).

Structured review template

1. Summary of aims and key claims (max 150 words)
2. Major strengths (3 bullets)
3. Major weaknesses (3 bullets, with specific examples)
4. Methodological or evidentiary checklist (tick-boxes for reproducibility items)
5. Recommendation (accept / revise / reject) and rationale
6. Tone and communication notes (suggested wording for authors when feedback is sensitive)

Bias mitigation and reproducibility: tools and training

Reducing subjective noise requires systems-level support. Practical options for 2026:

• Reviewer calibration workshops: short sessions where reviewers score sample manuscripts and discuss divergences. These are low-cost and shown to reduce score variance; see programs like the Advanced Ops Playbook for workshop design ideas.
• Automated screening: use AI to flag missing data/code, plagiarism, or noncompliance with reporting standards, but retain human oversight to check algorithmic false positives.
• Reproducibility badges and registered protocols: expand beyond RCTs and lab sciences to include registered qualitative protocols and digital humanities data deposits.
• Blind and open review hybrids: combine initial double-anonymized assessment for methodological soundness with open post-acceptance commentary to surface interpretive debate.

Interpretation, tone, and ethical critique: maintaining trust

Tone matters. The Gerry & Sewell review is persuasive because the critic writes with authority and cultural empathy. Academic peer review must preserve honesty without veering into dismissal or ad hominem rhetoric. Editors should emphasize that critical language should be focused on text and evidence, not on authors' motives or backgrounds.

Ethics and authorship practices (CRediT, ORCID integration) increase accountability for claims. When reviewers see clear contribution statements, subjective assumptions about who "did what" are less likely to skew acceptance decisions. For examples of how authors can present contributions and portfolios, see resources on showcasing AI-aided projects.

Future predictions: peer review by 2030

Based on trends visible in late 2025 and early 2026, expect these shifts:

• Hybrid evaluation models: Integrated rubrics that combine reproducibility checks with interpretive criteria will become standard for interdisciplinary submissions.
• Human-AI partnership: AI will handle routine checks and sentiment analysis of review tone; human editors will arbitrate nuanced interpretation and ethical considerations.
• Community-curated reviews: Post-publication community reviews will complement pre-publication peer review, especially for humanities and public-facing scholarship; platforms supporting microgrant and community funding models will help sustain them.
• Stronger metadata standards: FAIR-aligned data and method metadata will increase the shareability and secondary use of humanities datasets, improving transparency. See consortium roadmaps for interoperable verification and metadata standards at certify.page.

Final takeaways: balancing judgement and generosity

Subjectivity in peer review is not a flaw to be erased; it is an epistemic resource that—if made visible and structured—improves scholarship. The Gerry & Sewell review reminds us that tone, context, and audience define value in the humanities. Translated to academic peer review, that means:

• Make reviewers' interpretive frames explicit.
• Adopt structured templates that preserve nuance while anchoring claims to evidence.
• Use AI and badges to secure reproducibility, freeing reviewers to focus on interpretation.
• Train reviewers in constructive tone and cross-disciplinary evaluation.

Call to action

If you edit, review, or submit manuscripts in 2026, start one practical change this quarter: adopt the structured review template above or pilot a two-stage review for interdisciplinary submissions. Join a reviewer calibration session, require short positionality statements, or run an AI-screening trial to catch reproducibility gaps. Share your results with your editorial board or department—small procedural changes scale fast. For tailored rubrics, reviewer training modules, or a consultation to pilot these strategies at your journal or department, download our free cross-disciplinary review toolkit (2026 edition) or contact our team at journals.biz.

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