London - West End Audiences

[Olp]

They're a weird bunch aren't they?

I've heard they're behaving more badly since covid and my experience is that this is the case. Nothing headline-worthy but certainly poor behaviour. A large number of people arriving late, both at the beginning of the performances and after the intervals, talking loudly during the shows, eating noisy food throughout and rustling wrappers, multiple getting up and going to loo/taking calls type interruptions, just done casually without a care about disturbance ... It's constant low level distraction and it does impede enjoyment of the shows because it gets in the way of the immersion feeling that is the buzz of live theatre.

I don't really get it - we all pay a fair bit for the tickets but ime recently there are numerous people who not only hamper other people's engagement with the performance but who can't really get much out of it themselves. I'd understand it more if it was raucous enjoyment but as well as being noisy and inattentive the people who act like this also look surly and quite frankly just not very happy. But they've chosen to be there!

Has anyone else encountered this?

There was a similar thread on this a few weeks ago - I'm a reasonably frequent theatre goer to a whole range of different shows and have been for 30 years or more now. While I would say overall you are right, there is definitely an increase in some of this behaviour, I personally haven't witnessed the extremes you describe or that much really disruptive stuff to the level it ruins the performance. Phones for instance, I think people are actually much much better now at turning them off compared to when they were a newer phenomenon say 20 years ago and you'd get a ringing phone in every other performance. Have seen very little videoing of performances, people using phones during the performance and all the big west end theatres have ushers going around with signs beforehand very clearly telling people not to use their phones. Late-comers always have been a thing, can't say I've seen a huge increase recently, that's down to the threatre and ushers to manage that robustly and sneak people in quietly at a suitable moment or deny them entry until the interval if not.

One thing I would say is audiences are so much more diverse now than they used to be, when I first started going to the theatre regularly in my 20s it was a very much the same types of privileged/regular theatre goers in every audience and it was rare to have pre-teen children there (even for musicals or other suitable shows), let alone the kinds of accessible performances we have now specifically designed for as many different kinds of people as possible to be able to attend. Whereas now at pretty much every performance, even of things that aren't specifically marketed as 'family friendly' you get (sometimes very) young children there. On the whole I think that's a really good thing, that children get exposed to the wonderful word of theatre at a younger age, but it does encourage more of the snacking, talking, going in and out kind of behaviours that are just inevitable if you have primary age kids in attendance. While I agree the theatre isn't cheap or within everyone's reach, particularly to bring the whole family, I do think standards of living have changed to mean a broader range of people can afford it and people generally expect the whole family to be included, again largely a good thing but perhaps means the inherent shared understanding of what 'acceptable' or 'normal' theatre etiquette has changed.

Certainly my parents who were average middle class professionals living in the Home Counties would have thought it a very rare/special/extravagant treat to go to London to go to the theatre in the 60s/70s and it wouldn't have crossed their minds to take us children with them if they did, and their expectations with regard to behaviour in public in all sorts of ways was obviously very strict and totally different to today's norms - they were extremely intolerant of differences of any kind TBF. And even when I was bringing up my kids 30 years later, we didn't go on whole family theatre trips to the theatre except to the panto (I used to take DD as a teenager but that's different, she could sit until the interval without crying or needing a wee by then!). Whereas nowadays it does seem quite common to see whole families going to a matinee as part of a London outing, and of course then the littlies want a snack or sing along to the songs or whatever...

Here's the other thread BTW https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4989610-theatre-etiquette?page=1

I go a lot, 5 times this year and behaviour has been no problem at all and probably monthly last year. There was a thread on here late last year about bad behaviour in McBeth which was obviously a Troll as what the OP reported was impossible for that performance.

Yep had this a couple of weeks ago when watching the stranger things play. Someone in the middle was rustling plastic. Thick plastic of some kind. It wasn't a crisp packet but something noisier. Fooking annoying and I wasn't close enough to say something. Must have been even louder for people sitting closer and can't believe it got to almost the interval before it finally stopped 😡😡😡 How can people not have the sense to know the noise they are making?! FFS I unwrapped all my throat sweets before the show started!!

I agree. As a regular theatre-goer, I agree that there is an increase of people leaving their seats mid-performance. Usually people who are mid-row so all one side of the row need to get up to let them out!
I was at the theatre last week, and they let late-comers come in which disturbed things. Same performance, the person in front of me had their phone out , with the screen bright, booking their Uber. Luckily an usher was nearby to tell them to put the phone away.

I see 1 to 2 shows a week and don’t see this at all!!!

There are nearly always latecomers when I go to the theatre (& cinema) and I go at least once a month to one or the other.
I haven't witnessed any of the more extreme behaviours, but latecomers do annoy me. Ticket information nearly always says that latecomers will not be admitted but they seem to be in my experience.
I was very late for an opera once (tube problems) and I had to sit in the foyer and watch on a screen until the interval. I was absolutely fine with that. I didn't expect to cause disruption to others by taking my seat during the performance.

Yes definitely - people got too used to being in their living rooms and also struggle not looking at their phones. I avoid the more ‘mainstream’ west end shows for this reason, and try to only go to theatre in the week.

I saw sister act recently and it had a horrific audience, people constantly getting up to go to the loo, loud eating and drinking, glasses rolling everywhere.
The man behind me stuffed his face for the first act and snored through the second.

If the show hadn't been so good I'd have left at the interval.

But everything else I've seen this year has been great, no noise, no fuss, a few latecomers but nothing major.

Yeah it's specifically the West End big ticket extravaganza type shows I'm meaning here. Other theatres/cinema it's not so bad - although eating noisy food seems to happen at other theatre performances more often than it used to. And it's not kids either - ime the worst behaved are middle aged people, who presumably have been to a theatre before. It's not even just in the auditorium - twice on Saturday I had women barge into me (spilling my drink) in their haste to get outside to the smoking area.

I do think it's poor form on the theatre's part to allow people to just wander in randomly during the first 15/20 minutes of a performance. Like a pp I can remember being late for performances in the past and the ushers would have us wait by the door for a suitable time to smuggle us in, or alternatively we would just have to wait for the interval.

Genuinely haven’t noticed an increase in poor behaviour and I go to the theatre / opera / ballet of some kind at least twice a month. Somebody in a row behind fell asleep and snored loudly through the second act of The Handmaid’s Tale, but I can’t really count that as knowingly rude!

Cinemas OTOH have been dire recently. Parents at non-child-friendly showings bringing and letting bored toddlers roam the aisles, people talking through the movie, phone lights everywhere.

To posters who are sayi they've never seen it - are you sure it's just that you haven't noticed it? Some people are better at blocking that kind of thing out. I wish I was like that.

I have only been to the West End twice since lockdown.

One of them was a ghost story so I think that affects how people behave, it was fine.

The other one was pretty dreadful for the behaviour that is described here.

But I also saw that behaviour that before, and theatre directors have complained about it pre 2020. I don't think latecomers should be let in unless it's an interval or scene change but now there's no managers around to handle that I guess.

Even people who think they're being quiet and discreet looking at their phones, argh. It drives me nuts.

Prices have gone way beyond what I'm willing to pay anyway, but I can't get my head around people paying those prices and then behaving like they're in their front room.

If they're not interested in the show, how on earth did they part with that amount of money to go and see it?!

The worst thing that's happened is standing ovations for everything!!

Yes i noticed this too lately. Most recently it was 2 ladies in front of us at Hamilton - CONSTANTLY fiddling with their phones… unlock, flick to FB, scroll down a bit, lock phone. So not even looking at anything.

And a guy behind me at Magic Flute who reeeeeeally wanted us all to know that he knew the tunes - humming along all the way through, sighing and almost even groaning in my ear, doing smug knowing little chuckles. Luckily he fucked off in the interval and 2 other people sat there so I don’t know if maybe they were late too!

I put this on the other thread too! Annoys me no end, I feel like 90% of shows these days, good, bad, indifferent or downright poor get a standing ovation from at least part of the audience. I don't mind showing my appreciation but being the old curmudgeon I am I like to save the standing ovation for something I think is genuinely exceptional... bit like how 5 star review is the bare minimum standard these days which also annoys me, why even offer the option of 5 stars if really there's only a binary choice between 'everything was OK' or 'it was the most disgusting experience of my life'!