when at a performance of Hamlet...

[tokyonambu]

...to think that (a) having a whispered plot conference with your companion after every scene and (b) clapping your hands or (worse) slapping your thighs every time you hear a line you recognise are the signs of an idiot? I'd heard the joke about the person who left a performance of Hamlet saying that they'd enjoyed it, but the script was just a load of famous quotes, but I didn't expect to see it in action. And camcordering the curtain call because John Simm is in it? FFS.

I know, I know, when in the provinces Rome, expect provincials Romans, but it's rather annoying.

Still, not as

"Worst Shakespeare I have ever seen was Ben Kingsley's Othello. David Suchet as Iago was good, but the rest was bobbins."

I saw that production and really enjoyed the whole thing: Othello and Iago both.

The worst I saw was The Merchant of Venice last year (RSC).

It doesn't matter whether it is the provinces or not - when people are spending large amount of money on a ticket for a play, it is not reasonable for audience members to be distracting other people. You don't spend £30 so you can't hear the production or are spending the whole play listening to someone unwrap sweets and kicking you in the back of your chair. School parties are the worst - though some are good, I'm sure.

Well, I've seen the Tempest at the Minack with real rain arriving on cue; Helen Mirren as Lady Macbeth (I'm ancient, obviously) and Anthony Sher's Richard III at Stratford - but the very best Shakespeare production I ever saw was The Merchant of Venice in Harrogate. Yes really, the one that's usually such a bloody awful anti-semitic embarrassment, playing in the heart of Yorkshire. It was stunning (in a hit-you-over-the-head and leave you reeling way), the audience were left shaken.

I don't think its fair to have a go at the OP. Most of us just expect people to be quiet and considerate to other members of the audience. It's basic manners. Same at the cinema. If you can't sit still/be quiet for a couple of hours, stay at home and rock in your chair you numpty.

The Mirren macbeth had some sort of psuedo-nazi conceit which made no sense either.

The Merchant of Venice was, as it happens, also set in the Nazi era, based on the fact that concentration camp prisoners were made to perform in orchestras and plays for their captors amusement. So the Jews were rehearsing and performing the play - Shylock and Jessica complete with caricature noses - with the audience sitting in place of the complicit Germans. Highly effectively done and intensely uncomfortable. Totally did for any whispering or guffawing or rustling.

Grimma, that sounds amazing.

Quattrocento- you can queue for returns for the NT: worked for me a couple of Saturdays ago and was the best afternoon I've had in ages.

Unacceptable theatre behaviour (whether in the provinces or not)

• talking during the performance

-being late -snogging during the performance (Stevie Jones excepted) -eating, especially sweets with rustly paper -clapping changes of scenery -clapping first appearance of famous actor

• clapping anywhere except at the end of the first half and the end

-scarylooker's example: any behaviour designed to demonstrate familiarity with play/comprehension of bit in foreign language

• bringing large party of slender, shiny-haired schoolgirls: distracts DH rather

-being tall and sitting in front of me

Theatre behaviour about which I am simply snobbish

• taking photographs of one another
• buying huge, over-priced souvenir programme

-only going to see a play because someone famous is in it then going to collect autographs/shriek at the stage door

Unacceptable behaviour by theatres:

• not having large enough/fast enough bar

-being staffed by thin young people in black who seem to think that that selling theatre tickets/theatre ice cream etc makes one "creative" -having creaky seats -endless plays about suicidal scandinavians -pantomime

Ooh I do like a good play about suicidal Scandinavians, I must admit!

I thought this was the first line of a limerick

when at a performance of hamlet
don't chat in the stalls to yer mam, pet
as someone will moan
with superior tone

ok someone finish it

I must post about this on Mumsnet.

before running the gauntlet on Mumsnet

ha you have larger brains than me

Would love to see how much an original Shakey audience chatted merrily during the performance :)

It's interesting that someone said lower down that they'd never seen a good production of Macbeth

Because neither have I. Not one. And I too have seen a lot of productions of Macbeth - probably around 20. It's one of my favourite plays

I though John Simms was John Inman!

Obviously playing Hamlet's father...

Ian Mckellen did an RSC Hamlet in about the year dot that was fantastic.
It wa a studio theatre production, no overblown set and props, just a swinging lightbulb.

Sorry - I mean Macbeth, not Hamlet

It was me, Quattro.

It's strange isn't it? Have seen some great productions of other plays but only awful versions of Macbeth. Maybe because we like it so much, we expect too much?

Or maybe it's just too easy to over-do the characters, so that they become cartoon-esque in their evilness?

I'm sure you're right about the expectations thing

Do you think there might be something about this play only working when read rather than acted out in three dimensions on the stage. Hard to get the darkness right

I like the McKellen Macbeth, it is so understated and Judi Dench is extraordinary; I have it on DVD somewhere.

There was a half-decent but very feminist Macbeth the other year the RSC did with David Troughton.

The worst was a post-apocalyptic one that I saw at the Crucible back in yesteryear, where the soldiers wore segments of tyres as their shoulder guards.

I've only ever seen Hamlet once, but it was a naked French version, in Brussels. More 'Am Lay than Hamlet, and extremely disturbing.

I was also going to namecheck the Ian McKellan Macbeth.

I actually love the idea of people being all superior and executing 'knowing' laughs at in 'appropriate' places (possibly while stroking their chins). It reminds me of that episode of Blackadder when Queenie was quoting really bad poetry ("When I'm feeling Blue, and the cows go Moo, when I'm feeling Black, and the ducks go quack...") and Melchett and the court were standing behind her doing aforementioned 'appreciative' laughter ("Oh, very good, your Majesty!" etc etc).

I used to belong to my school 'Theatre Club' - twas all very 6th form, we'd all yak about on the train quoting the Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock and opine how very intellectual we were. We saw Anthony Hopkins in King Lear but sneaked out at the interval to go to the pub because "we know what happens in the second half" (Sigh). Our teacher also got us tickets to see Pravda with Anthony Hopkins and at some point in, he said the single line "Fuckwit!" and entire National audience (except us) fell about laughing. To this day, I know not why. Clearly not as intellectual as I thought...

Or possibly even 'Inappropriate' places. Intellectual as a table, me...

YANBU to want to be able to hear the play, but YABU and very rude to imply that Londoners and Londoners alone know how to sit still and shut up.

FWIW I have seen 50 times as many plays in "the provinces" as I have in London, because the prices are reasonable (e.g. £8 rather than £45) and you get to see a broad variety of things. I would rather go and see a brilliant and original Taming of the Shrew in a haybarn than another ponderous King Lear at Wyndhams or wherever.

Mark Rylance - I loved his Richard II, it was one of the best performances I've ever seen. I have a terrible memory but he seems to have imprinted his lines into my mind. Got a bit of a crush actually (weird and wrong, I know). Saw Kevin Spacey in something really bad at the Old Vic but it didn't matter what it was because he is a wonderful actor and I just couldn't take my eyes of him (no crush in this case) :o