Rude people in the theatre

I rarely go to the theatre now because of the audience, which is a shame. I used to go at least once a week, but then they started allowing people to eat and drink, and I think that was the start it. People now behave like they're on the sofa at home, and have no consideration for others. I don't want to be trying to lose myself in a dramatic moment only to have someone opening a smelly bag of crisps, or slurping on their soda pop, or lighting their phone screen to check the time.

I do still go to the opera house, I think it's the only place in London now that doesn't allow food and drink, though even they have started allowing bottled water. And the ushers are fierce - they keep a very close watch and if anyone ever misbehaves even slightly they immediately dash off and glare at them, barely perceptible to the audience... They will certainly turf anyone out if need be. And so the audience behaves, and I don't leave more stressed than when I arrived. Though they do also have 'relaxed performances' for people who really can't go more than half an hour without eating, drinking or chatting, so maybe that's the key.

@Katrinawaves
i agree OP- I went to see a musical and the people behind us were so drunk they were singing (badly). Its the first time that it happened.

I wonder if its time to bring back the musical hall on a Friday/Sat night- concerts are so expensive even for the tickets that most people end up in the theatres.

Okay then, not to swell profits but to function. I wish this wasn’t the case.

I once saw a gang of noisy teenage girls thrown out of a cinema for making noise.

It's not to swell profits

Theatres make at least 50% of their money from concessions sales. They literally need that money to function

I go to the theatre very regularly and every time there are people talking through it, eating noisily, drinking too much and being obnoxious, letting their children talk loudly and/or move around, singing along to musicals, arriving late and then making a fuss getting to seats when the show is in progress….I could go on! I find it absolutely ridiculous that people can’t just sit still and shut up for a couple of hours to watch the thing everyone has paid lots of money to see!!

Nothing wrong with people who do though. They sell food in the cinema and make money from it.

I dont eat anything when I go to.the cinema. I dont feel the need.

Theatre Usher here...

Sometimes what you think is obvious and loud isn't, sometimes it's hard for us to pin down exactly who is making the noise. Please always talk to us in the interval and we will try and have a word.

People are also just rude. We have had to have security escort people out who have shouted and screamed all the way out, we have had people complain and cry to the managers that we have victimised them or picked on them or being rude to them because we've told them to stop talking/filming/singing

Then you get the people who can't understand that musicals (especially jukebox musicals) aren't concerts and, no, you can't song along and people aren't being miserable because they aren't joining in

We understand. We get it. We hate it too.

This will not be something everyone agrees with, but when I was young there was also a different attitude to going to the theatre, which I liked. It was considered a treat, or event and people actually got dressed up - "Sunday best" kind of dressed up. I remember as a child having my best clothes on.

Now you see people dressed in all sorts and I do feel that feeds a little into their behaviour: they have convinced themselves it's nothing special. I saw a child at a children's performance recently and they had torn leggings with mega bum-sag and a stained t-shirt - like mum had said "put on your playing in the garden clothes." I understand that people like an easy life, but I do think it also makes things feel less of an event.

There's always one who.thinks the rules dont apply to them.
Went to to the local theatre a few weeks ago.
They asked you not to take photos. I saw one woman doing it.
I try to always sit on the end if I can.

Several years ago we went to see Bryan Ferry at the Albert Hall. We had literally just sat down when we got a message to say our daughter had been rushed to hospital with a suspected stroke - we had to get up and leave and race to the hospital. I wouldn't be able to go to a concert without access to my phone. Can you still access the phone in an emergency with the pouches?

This is so true.

I used to have such great focus, and really struggled to take the breaks they suggest when working on something. However, one of the reasons I am on MN now is when I am working I have it open on another window and flick across every so often to change focus, and you can just dip quickly in and out (though I do sometimes get chastised for not RTFT! I just can't spend that much time!)

It's like I am training myself not to be able to concentrate; these days I like a bit of something else slotted in at intervals like a mental amuse-bouche between courses.

People tend to have short attention spans, and be phone addicted now (I don't think people in the 80s/90s when I was a kid would have believed how we'd constantly be on social media), plus most people aren't as used to sitting still in schools as they used to be. One of the grans who helped at our primary says she's surprised how much moving around they do and how little time they spend sitting still, compared to her day. Not saying that's a good or a bad thing, just how it is, at least at my kids' state schools. And people used to go the cinema a lot, now most people chat or scroll when they watch Netflix. If someone steps in to police behaviour these days, like if a kid is putting their feet on bus seats/misbehaving in a restaurant/someone talking in a cinema, there's likely to be at least an argument and sometimes a fight, maybe.

i Went to see the band Ghost earlier this year. The band has always been very vocal about phones at concerts and how people should live in the moment to the extent that this time it was a device free gig.

phones were sealed in pouches and honestly it was bloody amazing. To be able to stand and watch a concert without looking through phone screens and interact with the band made such a difference. I’d love to see more artists, and theatres use the technology.

I just don't go to big West End performances any more because I don't see the point in spending so much money just for the experience to be ruined by selfish gits who don't know how to behave. Fortunately, the behaviour in my local theatres seems to be so much better (so far!), so we generally wait for musicals etc. to be shown there on tour. But the best (and most well-behaved!) performance I've seen this year was The Glass Menagerie at a tiny theatre in East London, which so enraptured the audience that they all leaned forward as one - literally on the edge of their seats - at the most crucial points in the story. That's how the experience should be - with the audience totally immersed!

I saw a comedian (not a hugely well known one but has been on TV - Nabil Abdulrashid) and a pair of women were thrown out. They complained he was too loud and "ruining their socials" (they should not have been filming to start with.. they did get a warning). Then they heckled a couple of times. Comedian made a pointing gesture and told them to fuck off. They were escorted out, and the audience cheered.
Waste of the comedian's time, the audience's time, and ultimately their own money.

I see a lot of live comedy, the odd tv comedian but more lesser well known touring comedians, in venues of all sizes (but never arenas) and there has never been a problem. The odd person taking a subtle photo, but no general phone problems at all and the audiences are really well behaved. In fact one, Tommy Tiernan, provided pouches to lock phones away and it was brilliant! Maybe folk are too scared of being picked on in a live comedy setting to disturb others, and really want to be there.

Definitely music and musicals where people get annoying. Saw my fav band a few months ago, got on the barrier in an Academy venue and during a slower song a woman I’d been talking to before the show, kept trying to ask me what I thought of the band and show now, given one of them had recently left! Gah!

Musicals: My sister told someone at Phantom of the Opera in the West End to put her phone away, which she did. At Hamilton in Manchester the family in front had a child of about 5 with them, who was obviously bored. She was going from one person to the other and crawling all over them. The dad nearly, but didn’t, take her home in the interval. Just not the right show for such a young child surely.

At a West End singers solo gig the woman next to us was drinking. She kept her mini bottle of the wine and her glass on the floor. Every minute she leaned down to fill her glass, then again to pick it up, then again drink from it, put it down again and repeat. Drove us mad.

I'm always astounded by the fact that people don't know how to behave at the theatre.

We're just home from NYC and on Thursday night we went to see Beetlejuice on Broadway (highly recommended, it's coming to the West End soon).

There was a woman in front who had an empty seat next to her. She kept swapping seats 😡 pick one and sit in it!!! When the music came on she put her hands in the air like she didn't care. One is not at a concert! 😡 I swear, I nearly clobbered her with my playbill.

DD and I went to see Heathers a couple of years ago and the people next to us came in late TWICE. Once at the beginning and after the interval, meaning we had to stand to let them in.

I've been at a pantomime years ago where the people in front had a baby and let it cry for the whole first half. What is wrong with people?

By asking her to either pipe down or leave. It’s really not impossible. I’m a theatre steward.

We had this at a Christmas service. Children about three or four (so old enough to know what sit still means) dressed in angel wings thundering up and down the aisle of the church. As one of them came back up towards their parents, I saw the parent move in their seat and thought they were at least going to get them under control. But, no: they were getting their phone out of their back pocket to video the little mite as it rampaged about the church, smiling expectantly at everyone as if expecting adoring smiles at their antics like their grinning parent with their phone trained on them.

The worst thing about theatres these days are the people taking selfies - tossing their hair into position and writhing and arching their back in their seat in front of you to get their sexiest look. It's bad enough when they take it looking backwards, but I had one woman twist right round in her seat to get the performance in the background.

I gave her the filthiest look I could manage to convey in the dark, but wish I'd had the gumption to ask her at interval if she would be posting to her instagram with the caption: "Here I am being Culchured at the Theatre and ruining it for those round me who paid a fortune for their tickets and actually wanted to watch."

Sorry, I agree with 99% of this thread but YABU. As pointed out to you, it's Everyman's USP, they make burgers and other foods available for order and consumption during the film and nobody who goes there should have to moderate their food choices in case someone else doesn't like the smell etc. I note you've said you don't go there anymore and that's probably a very good decision on your part because the problem in this case is very decidedly you.

I’ve noticed the decorum is lost!

Yanbu. People were removed from a musical i was at this year .

When I took my 10 year old to see Wicked, there was a woman in the row behind me who was constantly loudly narrating the show to her own child (probably about five and obviously did not understand what was happening), rustling sweets and using her phone - she had probably disturbed everyone around her twenty times in the first ten minutes of the show. I asked her politely to be quieter several times. The front of house staff took matters into their own hands before I had to speak to them and they came and told her that she would need to leave if she couldn't guarantee to remain quiet. No further problems. I thanked them at the interval. That's what should happen. FOH should be looking out for problems and solving them before they turn into something bigger. That's literally part of their job.