Or how online arts reviews have the potential to become the hot new place for musical lonely hearts.

For Guardian theatre critic Michael Billington it was just another review going up online. The veteran reviewer had just seen a new staging of Stephen Sondheim and Richard Rodgers’ 1964 flop Do I Hear A Waltz at an off-West End London venue (a luke-warm 3-star affair for those interested). But for some in the audience the night was yet young…

Spotting Billington’s review on the Guardian online website, the cryptically named 100Objects decided to get the following off his chest: “Mmmm left at half time. Underpowered show. Tunes no good and not enough light and shade for me. Shame.”

Seeing that, and feeling the need to leave a comment of his own, the more candidly identifiable Oliver Beatson wrote, “It’s a shame you didn’t see the end. I think the performance of the actor playing Leona was worth sticking around for alone (not that it was the show’s only merit at all), although I feel the story indeed declined in Act II.”

Pretty straightforward you might think, but that innocuous comment turned out to be a shy pretext for...