You're not invited: Blue Man Group's redfaced retraction The Blue Man Group on stage in New York. Picture: Rupert Thorpe Source: Supplied ACCORDING to the publicity material, a performance by the Blue Man Group redefines the concept of live entertainment. It's a "wildly popular show" and an "explosive evening of entertainment." In fact, it's more than a show - it's a "a state of mind." Sounds exciting. Whether any of that stands up to scrutiny, though, is another matter entirely. Rodney Rigby, the producer of Blue Man Group's Australian tour, has revoked an invitation to The Australian's critic Deborah Jones, claiming her reviews of musical theatre have been "inconsistent." He said Jones was welcome to buy a ticket, along with anyone else. The show opens in Sydney tonight before moving to Perth and Melbourne. "I don't want The Australian to review our show," he said. We are in the theatre business and we are creative people and we put things up for assessment by the public ... The critical process is part of what we do. I understand that. I find the level of inconsistency in The Australian difficult to appreciate. The Blue Man Group's Australian tour is being produced by Rodney Rigby and Blue Man Group with the support of Destination New South Wales on behalf of the NSW Government. Rigby's comments come just a few months after Jones, a veteran of the Australian arts scene with 25 years of reviewing experience, as well as a former arts editor and executive editor of this newspaper, expressed her opinions on his previous musical, The Addams Family. In the review, published in The Australian on March 25, Jones made it clear she wasn't blown away by the show. This is how the review ended: "Mostly, though, what I saw on opening night was smoke and mirrors, painting by numbers, buttons pushed. Most dispiriting. Of course, Rigby isn't the first producer to hit back at Jones following the publication of a less than glowing review. Last May, incensed by her take on his musical An Officer and a Gentleman, Douglas Day Stewart attacked Jones as an "executioner who calls herself a critic." In her review, Jones had referred to the "cringe-making obviousness" of the show as one of its many failings. Six weeks later, following poor ticket sales, the musical closed.