To ask for your worst viewing experience in cinema or theatre?

[LouiseBrooks]

Inspired by another thread where people are dissing one of my favourite recent films (please go over there if you want to moan about that one ). Which other film or play did you utterly loathe?

Mine:
Film - Out of Africa. Streep's ridiculous accent, Redford's (who I normally love) awful miscasting, the fact that I knew they had messed about with the facts. Michael Kitchen was great though . My Streep fanatic friend left at the interval since she hated it more than me.

Theatre - Blood Brothers. Absurd story and awful songs.

Mama Mia is awful. Closely follows by anything with the words Bill Kenright. His last effort with Ghost and Sarah Harding was a fucking outrage.

Also, being sandwiched between a fat friend and an even fatter stranger in tiny crammed-together seats at a show at the Edinburgh Fringe. Not fun and made it difficult to appreciate the show.

As far as the actual play goes, I was distinctly unimpressed by Fiddler on the Roof. The story and songs just didn't really enthuse me at all.

Watership Down - my auntie took me and my cousin to cheer him up when she and his dad were going through a rough patch. We were inconsolable for hours!

Another vote for cats, I would rather listen to actual cats than sit through that again

Panic Room. Utterly predictable, tedious bilge.

The War of the Worlds. Love Jeff Wayne. Hate Tom Cruise.

Worst cinema probably titanic, I slept for about 2 hours of it but still had to put up with another hour of the cheesy rubbish

Plenty of films I've regretted seeing at the pictures - one of the Saw films and Inferno are 2 I can think of. The worst cinema experience was a rubbish film DH wanted to see when we were teens, can't remember what it was called but it was in 3D. Turns out I can't see in 3D, it was not fun.

Worst theatre experience was The Woman in Black, not so much the play itself (was very well done and very tense and creepy atmosphere) but the theatre was so old and uncomfortable, no legroom and just 1 toilet for the entire upper level in the interval.

I don't think I've ever walked out of a film and I used to work in a cinema so seen a lot of rubbish.

A friend and I (I say friends but we didn't actually know each other that well at that point although that soon changed!) went to see Me and Mamie O Rourke (?) it was French and Saunders so we expected it to be really funny. Everyone around us was laughing but we weren't. At the interval we had that kind of tentative conversation you have when you don't know how the other one thinks....

Hmm. What do you think?
Well it's not quite what I was expecting.....
No, I thought it would be funnier....
I wonder If the second half will be better....
Hmmm I'm quite hungry.....
So am I .......
Do you want to stay for the second half?
Nope, lets go get food!

A theatre production of The Misanthrope, it was "jazzed up" a bit and was really crap. We left in the interval, felt a bit bad but it was really dire.
Also, a very bad version of Chekhovs Uncle Vanya by a local theatre group.
Didnt leave, but the acting was awful, I was longing for it to end.

Cinema:
The bridges of Madison county
The lake house
Somethings gotta give
Mamma Mia
Les mis
La la land

Theatre:
Buddy

do not see DirtyGrandad 🤢🤢🤢

The film of Mamma Mia. I sat through it mostly in open mouthed horror.

My friend and I agreed at the end the only good thing about it was the scenery (Santorini iirc). I realised for most of the film I'd just been watching the background.

Last week my bf and I went to see Downsizing. I would have got up and left because it was shit, but it was cold outside so I stayed put til the end. I'd recommend you all give it a miss. What was Matt Damon thinking?!

The worst of all was a film I went to see as a student with a v arty friend. We thought it was an art film. It was basically Japanese porn. We were sat there in shocked silence and after agreed never to speak of it again. I still cringe a bit thinking about it 25 years later!

Another vote for cats. Got tickets as a gift and gave them away as friends had been and left 30 min in due to bordem.

Whoever created mumma mis has a lot to answer for. Bloody awful

Theatre - The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami. The play was great but we were up in the gods at The Barbican and I had about 1 inch wriggle room for my feet. My legs were screaming by the end of it. Being so uncomfortable with so little leg room ruined it for me. It's all I remember!

Cinema - walked out of The Planet of the Apes by Tim Burton circa 2001. First and last time I've ever left a film for being so shit.

Ive fallen asleep in loads of films though.

A James Bond one about 10 years ago. So shit I left the cinema after 20 minutes.

The Lion King (Disney cartoon). But don’t you dare criticise Titanic

Intolerable cruelty with CZJ and George Clooney. Only film I ever walked out of in cinema,just could not sit through the whole thing zzzzzzzz

A production of Frankenstein where they all crawled around the stage and one of the characters jigged herself off in front of a mirror yelling "WHY WON'T YOU TOUCH ME?!"

It wasn't that the film was shot which it wss but Inferno. The cinema room sat about 30, and the woman next to dp removed her shoes and socks and rubbed her feet for most of the film and reacted very loudly to the slight and obvious plot twist. For half the film he had her bare feet being rubbed very close to his crotch.

Another cinema one, my own private Idaho, Keanu Reeves & River Phoenix as rent boys. Went to see it in an ‘arthouse’ cinema in Soho, turned out to be more of a ‘wankhouse’ cinema as there were quite a few strange men in there, enjoying themselves much more than is decent on a Saturday afternoon

Cinema: Pride and Prejudice- the 2005 version. We were so bored we walked out.
Theatre: A White Christmas. Absolutely dreadful. Not helped by the fact that it had replaced the annual pantomime that year at the theatre.

Loved Les Mis (stage) and Starlight Express though. Also, I'm so glad somebody mentioned the Singing Kettle! I was talking about it to my OH the other day and he had no idea what I was on about and I actually thought I'd dreamt the whole thing.

Films I walked out of - Mama Mia, Purple Rain and although I stayed to the end, dh and I shook our heads in bewilderment at the end of Lost in Translation. I mean, what the heck was that all about?

Theatre was an Edinburgh Festival production by the Hull Truck Theatre Co. Can't remember what it was called, just that it was life draining shite.

Oh and I left RiverDance at the Edinburgh Playhouse in the interval because it was abundantly clear the tap dancing was miked in and not from the stage when the track got out of sync. Tut tut.

Oh, forgot the dire monstrosity that is the Harry Hill Movie as well. I took my siblings to see that one and it was DIRE!

I once had to sit through a film called 'The Last Boy Scout' (sometime in the 1990s). It was quite simply the most boring thing I have ever watched. I would have walked out but my only means of getting home from the out-of-town cinema was a lift from the friends sitting next to me, enraptured.