Was out tonight with my family watching a comedy show in a fairly small theatre and two women, in the row behind us, were screaming with laughter after each joke.
There was a lot of laughter from the audience throughout the show, as you’d expect, but theirs was by far the loudest and it felt a bit disruptive.
I didn’t say anything about it, but one of my family members got quite irritated by it, so they decided to say something about it to the women. I found out at the end of the show that the family member had told the women to ‘shut up’, as one of the women came to us afterwards and said: ‘did you just tell us to shut up our laughter?’
I’ve got lots of mixed feelings about this (even though it’s a really small thing in the grand scheme of things).
On the one hand, I think it was a bit antisocial for the women to laugh so loudly. They were almost screaming with laughter, way louder than anyone else in the theatre, and it felt quite performative - almost as if they weee trying to prove what a good time they were having.
On the other hand, they’re free to enjoy the comedy as they wish and I wish my family member hadn’t told them to shut up - she’s normally very kind and polite, so this is quite out of character for her.
Thanks all.