It was 1965 and I was appearing in Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs. This critic gave it a good trouncing. His name was Peter and he wrote for the Express. I wish I could remember his surname. I read the review at five in the morning. We'd been partying on the stage after the first night and sent somebody out to get the papers. Most of the reviews were pretty good, but his was absolutely damning.

Everybody was drunk. I decided to write him a letter. "Dear Peter," I wrote, "Whooops. Yours sincerely, John Hurt." And foolishly, I sent it off. About three weeks later, I got a letter back saying: "Dear Mr Hurt, thank you for your short but tedious letter. Yours sincerely, Peter." So I sent a letter back saying: "You win." Eventually, we met and had lunch. It was very funny; we laughed about it a lot. But I would generally advise against retaliation: critics are writers and if you say something on impulse, they've got all the time in the world to think of some witty riposte.

Sometimes I read my reviews, sometimes I don't. It depends how the spirit takes me and who the critic is. If you've got somebody like Kenneth Tynan or Harold Hobson, you sit up and take note. Tynan was a brilliant man, totally wasted as a critic. In America, you get much more in-depth theatre criticism. And of course, in the old Soviet countries, it was something you trained for, like a degree – you didn't just waltz into it when you happened to be a rather clever journalist and they didn't know what to do with you.

Putting personal remarks into reviews is outrageous. The actor will never forget it. I remember David Warner once being called "moose-faced". I've never had anything like that, but I've had my fair share of poor reviews. I may have been expecting them. Usually, you know the reasons for something being badly reviewed. I was probably thinking: "Am I going to get away with this one? I don't think so."

Una Stubbs

Una Stubbs in Pygmalion. Photograph: Alastair Muir/Rex

The first and last nasty review I ever read was for a production of Twelfth Night that I was in at the Sheffield Crucible in 1998. I don't usually read reviews, but at the end of the production, we were given a package with all the reviews in it. I thought: "Oh, well – it's over now. This won't hurt me." And they were all really good, except one that said I looked like a chicken – and did we need actors like that at the Crucible? Of course, that's the only one I remember now. I was hurt. I just couldn't work out what angle she was coming at, saying something like that.

It's better not to read reviews, even when they're good. They may mention how you say a particular line, and then the next time you come to that part, you'll think: "Ooh, this is the bit they like." It makes you think about it too much. There's an etiquette to discussing reviews with other actors, too. If they're bad, you pretend you haven't seen them; and if they're good, you still don't mention them, in case people would rather not know either way.

I don't think critics are intentionally cruel: they're just doing their job. But what I really don't like is when a critic gets personal about an actor's looks. Somebody was once called a cottage loaf, because of their shape. You think: "That's just not necessary. It's the acting you should be writing about, not the actor's appearance."

Meera Syal in Much Ado About Nothing. Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian

When I was in The School for Scandal at the Bristol Old Vic, a critic drily remarked: "Meera Syal's Mrs Candour pre-empts the pantomime season." I later found out that their usual theatre critic was off sick and the production had been reviewed by someone who usually covered sport. So it could have been worse. He could have said: "Meera Syal's Mrs Candour was a letdown in midfield and is crap at dribbling."

I now don't read reviews at all during any production I'm in. You have to go out every night on stage, and it's best with neither critical nor laudatory voices in your head. Occasionally, I read the reviews at the end of a run, but by then you've picked up on what they're like. If they're good, people will come up and say: "Well done, you." And if there's a deafening silence the day after press night, you know you stank. It's best to just not read the response, since you will remember those sentences verbatim for the rest of your career. Strange how you never memorise the good ones.

Douglas Hodge

Douglas Hodge in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Photograph: Helen Maybanks

When I played Hamlet at the Bolton Octagon, the show was reviewed by the Manchester Evening News. I was very young – about 25 – and acting my little cotton socks off. But the review didn't mention me at all. Not noticing me felt like the biggest slight of all. I'd almost rather he'd said I was the worst Hamlet ever.

I read all my reviews, good and bad, but I only believe the good ones. It's a triumph of vanity over common sense. I quite often write my own review of the show I'm in, too. I'll write: "Douglas Hodge fails in this area, but the production does manage to bring over this side of the show." I'm thinking about what a critic I really respect might say. It's quite useful, but I certainly never show it to the rest of the cast or the director.

The worst thing about being reviewed is that the history of your performance, and of that production, is all centred on a single evening: the press night. In the US, they have several press nights, spread out over a week. But in the UK, it's always this one night. It's like playing in the finals of the World Cup. You might be ill; you're praying the machinery will work; you're hoping your costume won't fall apart. Also, your performance changes over time. I played Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for a year. By the end of the run, my performance was completely different.

Peter Egan

Peter Egan (in armour) as 'bland' Claudius in Hamlet. Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian

If critics love you, they're wonderful. If they don't, they're awful. I stopped reading reviews in the 1990s, but by accident I did once come across a review of a 2004 production of Hamlet I was in. I was Claudius and a critic referred to my work as "bland". I think that's about as insulting as you can get. Yes, I was offended, but when you put yourself up as a target, you become fair game.

You always know how the reviews have gone, though, whether you read them or not. I just did Other Desert Cities at the Old Vic: we got a sense, just from the energy in the theatre, that it was well reviewed, and of course they put the four-star ones up outside. You can't miss them. And if, say, you're in a cast of five, there will be three who read the reviews. You can tell how the play's been received by whether they come into the theatre smiling.

People coming backstage after a performance is another form of criticism. There's a protocol: you can't say you hated it, even if you did. Laurence Olivier, when he went to see his fellow actors after a show, had an exit phrase if they'd given an indifferent performance. He'd look at them, point and say: "Well, what about you, then?" I've had friends who've just stood in the dressing-room doorway nodding, not saying anything. Sometimes they're jealous. Sometimes they just didn't like what I was doing.

Even spouses have to be careful. There's a story told about the 19th-century actor Henry Irving. He was travelling through Hyde Park in a cab with his wife, who didn't like him being an actor. She turned to him and said, "Now, when are you going to give up all this acting nonsense, Henry?" Apparently he stopped the cab, got out, and never spoke to her again.

Interviews by Laura Barnett

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