Singing along at a musical to cause such upset?

[cantbeatfreshsheets]

I went to a musical yesterday with my parents & sister to celebrate my mums birthday. We had a really nice day & this was the last thing we had planned. Arrived a few mins late and got to our seats with no problems.

After about 20 mins in. A catchy song came on. It was Tina Turner. My mum sang along for a couple of times during the chorus. It was hard not too. The whole show was about her being oppressed. Which is exactly how we felt after what happens next.

The lady in front turned around. Looked at my mum & said could you please, then used her hand against her mouth to gesture my mum to zip it 🤐 very passive aggressive.

Mum looked at us as if to say. What the F**
Anyway. She said I'll have to speak to her at the interval. Meanwhile I just thought what a spoilsport?!?! If you can't sing along at a musical what's wrong with the world. It's not like she was singing at the top of her voice???

It resulted with the lady in front going to make a complaint about my mum as mum tapped her on the shoulder and said during the interval How dare you tell me how to behave. My mum ended up going to see the manager herself where the other women was acting like we were trying to victimise her for not being happy against us telling her it was a free country. They said we were aggressive and being unreasonable?!?!

She said. It said on the way in you can't sing. We said. Well we didn't see that notice as we were late. We ended up leaving as my mum was so cross. There was a slight scene. The other woman was behaving like a child in my opinion. Has the world has gone mad.

My sister and I told her that she had spoilt our mums birthday and She was clearly enjoying playing the victim. I think she was probably shocked we confronted her over it.

We left. Were we being unreasonable? Or has the world gone crazy? I'd love to hear you're thoughts.

The huffy offence and wounded pride from the op and her ridiculous attempt at sounding cultured are hilarious.

@Jonsnowsghost. Thank you!

Only time singing along is okay!

I never knew you couldn't sing at a musical. How weird. I understand in cinema maybe but not at a musical.
I can imagine your mum felt she couldn't enjoy herself after that

It’s like the time my friend and I went to see chitty chitty Bang bang, we had a couple of wines pre show and both promptly fell asleep, in all fairness we had come off nights that morning (nurses) and we were woken up by someone as we’d started snoring 🙈 took it on the chin

You and your mum sound like a pain in the ass to be honest. The audience didn’t come to listen to your mum singing. I would have been very unimpressed if I’d been sat near you. It’s selfish to spoil it for others by singing. Stick to a karaoke bar in future.

You are a bunch of selfish arseholes with the self awareness of a cabbage
You also have no idea of how to use the word Etiquette in a sentence
Stick to panto

GOT to be a reverse.

MLMsuperfan Naughty!

I never knew you couldn't sing at a musical. How weird. I understand in cinema maybe but not at a musical

Why would you think you could?

What do you think those professionals, up there on the stage, are for?

You and your mum sound awful!

Why should the poor woman have paid her ticket price to hear your mum caterwauling? You probably ruined her whole night. Hope I never end up next to you in the theatre.

OP

Tell me it's not true. Why God why did your mum sing along?
The audience wanted to hear the people sing. On stage.
They go to the theatre because there's no business like show business.
All I ask of you is that the next time you go, you don't go past the point of no return and sing again.
I know that I love to boogie, but not at the theatre.
You need to have confidence in me that people go to the theatre to hear the sound of music.
Still I am sure you made 'em laugh!

I never knew you couldn't sing at a musical. How weird. I understand in cinema maybe but not at a musical. It would be far far worse to sing at a musical than at a cinema- though both are bad. People can pay hundreds for a West End ticket, not a fiver down the local cinema. The performers will have trained in singing for years. That is what people want to hear.

Howabout you are giving Glasgow theatre-goers a bad name. It's a friendly city, but the normal rules of theatre etiquette apply, and you having a fun night out is absolutely ruining it for the others. If no one is saying it to your face it's because they are afraid of escalating things with you.

Entitled, rude, and clueless people such as yourself and your family are the exact reason my husband and I don't go to the cinema or theater anymore. I don't have enough fingers to count how many times our experience has been ruined by boorish behaviour. Sauntering in 10 minutes late and you actually think you only disturbed 2 people? You're delusional and your mother's antics took the whole situation to the next level.

I would be pretty annoyed at anyone singing along during a musical. It’s just theatre etiquette, imagine if everyone started singing along?!

My Dsis, DM and I went to Les Mis recently and my mum started singing along to “one day more” for all of 2 seconds before me and Dsis both looked at her like

U ok hun?

I think that you (or your sister) should have gently reminded your mum that it is not correct to sing along out loud at an even like this.

I am a little surprised that none of ye realised this.

What would have been the effect if everyone in your row decided o do the same thin?

@howabout
I'm a regular theatre goer in Glasgow and I travel around to go to shows when we don't get them. I've never noticed a difference between a Glasgow audience and a London audience. People sit and watch; they don't shout and sing along. People are mostly very respectful. Those who wont shut up are asked to leave. Or tolerated with a lot of sighing and huffing from those sitting nearby.
Rocky Horror is a different kettle of fish; they almost always encourage sing a long and dressing up with that one.

We're going to see the Tina Turner musical in a couple of weeks and I've had an email from the ticket office stating that we can only sing during the finale.
We've paid £80+ for the tickets so I'll be well pissed off if someone other than the performers start singing.

But I guess it's easy to be unpleasant when hiding behind a screen.

Yes I'm impressed your mum managed to be so unpleasant to someone's face.

Try to think from someone else's point of view for a minute. This is the sort of show my lovely mum would save up to buy a ticket for, be really excited about and absolutely buzzing in the theatre.

She would have been really upset if someone behind her was doing something distracting that they were specifically told in writing and at the start of the show NOT to do - as far as she was concerned, because she has absolutely no obligation to have noticed your late arrival or the fact you missed the sign.

I don't think you realise how entitled you and your mum sound and maybe with the reaction on here it's worth you taking that on board rather than lashing out.

Otherwise why on earth did you ask if you were being unreasonable. It seems silly to post AIBU and then get the hump if people say you were unreasonable and mean / rude etc. It's a forum. You actively asked for an opinion.

When you're in the wrong, just say sorry and everyone moves on. All your mum had to do was stop singing. Rolling her eyes would be a bit of a rude response but on top of that she chose to create a confrontation and to be honest she sounds like a bully.

Lots of people would be quite scared if someone started having a go at them in the interval when they made a perfectly reasonable request during the show. Your mum probably ruined what a day that lady was looking forward to and wanted to enjoy.

I actually feel sad that you might have upset her but you don't seem to give a shit.

YABU.
People haven't paid to hear your mum or your family indulge yourselves. What on earth makes you think people would be happy with having to listen to her?

MLMsuperfan

Ha!!! I once had to ask someone sitting next to me to shut up whilst at Die Zauberflöte at the Royal Opera House!

It was the part with the small boys in the flying contraption. "What time tomorrow are they coming round to service the Aga? I really can't be bothered with it, I've got better things to do."

I don't think she was expecting someone with a Yorkshire accent to tell her to shut the fuck up!!

What @Biancadelrioisback said plus a few more....

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Priceless OP.

No singing I'm afraid, that would have annoyed me also. You have to obey the theatre rules.

She isn’t a misery guts, she simply didn’t want to be distracted from the show she paid to see by your mum’s singing! Your mum was obviously singing loud enough for her to hear her, otherwise she wouldn’t have said anything!

As much as it’s hardly the end of the world to sing the chorus, it’s not the end of the world to be asked not to either. Your mum should have accepted that she was disrupting the performance for another audience member and left it there. Her response “How dare you tell me how to behave.”, was pretty arrogant and confrontational actually and I’m not surprised the other woman complained.

You don’t get to spoil other people’s enjoyment of a ticketed musical performance by singing along. The other woman was fine to say what she did. Your mum should have sucked it up, sorry to say.