Annoying audience members in the theatre

[beverleybass]

Does anybody else ALWAYS seem to have seats right by the worst people in the theatre. I must just be unlucky.

This year saw Come From Away and was directly behind 3 women who kept chatting all the way through, including during really emotional and key moments and solos. Someone tapped them on the shoulder and told them to shush in the end which improved things slightly.

I also saw Cinderella and more chatters as well phones coming out constantly with their shining lights.

What is the point spending all that money on tickets to look at your phone or chat to people??

Anyway saw Mamma Mia as a birthday treat today and it was honestly the worst of the lot. People on my row playing musical chairs, people arriving up to fifteen mins late (and still being let in) the man to the left of me kept singing along with the songs, the people in front chatting and constantly zipping/unzipping bags and rustling noisy bags of snacks.

How hard is it to sit still and be quiet

I genuinely cannot believe how people behave in the cinema or theatre, I have drummed it into my kids that you don't talk, rustle or fidget, sit down, shut up and watch the bloody show

It always surprises me when adults talk through a whole bloody performance!

No manners today. I'm old enough to remember quiet lowered voices if you chatted on trains - privacy and the sensible assumption that everyone else doesn't want to hear your conversation.

Selling snacks (why, why) in noisy crinkly packs by the cinemas/ theatres seems purely asking for trouble.

Mamma Mia is a tricky one as they encourage the standing up and singing.

I went to see *Mamma Mia" years ago so am quite prepared to believe that things have changed, but my experience was that they only encouraged singing along to "Waterloo" which was performed after the musical itself was finished.

We were at a performance of lion king on the west end and directly behind us was a 5 year old who monologued all the way through- ‘where’s he going now mummy? What’s he doing now mummy? Why is she going up there mummy? Is he dead yet mummy?’ All the bloody way through. We know he was 5 and in year 1, because of the discussion mummy had with her friend and friends son at the interval (other kid same age was very well behaved). Most annoyingly he kept kicking my teenage DDs seat and putting his feet up on her seat back. At one point he even kicked her hard in the back of the head and I ended up turning around and telling him and his mum off.

I went to see 2.22 a while ago and the woman behind me said "I'm scared, I'm scared" repeatedly, for the entire show. Just leave then.

Yanbu

Off side but did you enjoy Come From Away? It's on my list to see but no one I know has seen it to tell me if its good or not!

That’s really frustrating. I go quite often to the theatre in London and fortunately the only issue has been people arriving late. I’m glad someone tapped them on the shoulder, you can’t be sitting there chatting over it all. Come from Away is great isn’t it!

Mobile phone wankers ruin almost every performance of anything in the West End or at the cinema these days. Is so selfish and infuriating. And if you ask them to desist you get a mouthful from them.

Two notable recent ones for me were:

Musical in the West End. Woman next to me kept her phone in her hand as she sat down and the lights went down. Uh oh. She kept tapping the screen so the backlight went on. Most distracting. At one point I said “no” and then as the interval started we found an usher and asked to be moved. No confrontation, just getting away from the nuisance. At the end she waited for us and started screaming at me in the lobby with her finger up in my face shouting that my attitude was a real problem. For saying no once to her repeated interruptions of my viewing and then getting the hell out of there. Nice woman, obvs.

The other was in the cinema. One woman 2 seats down from me was on her phone all through the opening credits. Someone asked her to put it away. She did. 5 minutes later it was back out again and she was scrolling through twitter and I asked her to put it away again as the backlight is distracting. She did and 5 minutes later her and her partner left, but first shouted that we should start our own cinema if we wanted to avoid being distracted by mobile phones

I tend to find that the poor ushers get just as much abuse as we have. Which they shouldn’t, obviously. And whilst behaviour is getting worse the mobile phone thing has been ruining cinema visits for years.

We don’t go to stuff at the theatre anymore - we used to go loads but having your night ruined by the distracting backlight from mobile phones or by entitled people being abusive just isn’t worth it. Nor do we go to any cinema other than our local independent where they throw out the mobile phone wankers.

@TooManyPJs

Why do you all just sit there? If someone was doing this all the way through I'd have complained to the ushers after about 10 minutes, I wouldn't just sit there seething! Theatre tickets are super expensive!!

How? We saw Frozen and the girl in front of me moved constantly through the entire first half. How was I supposed to get an usher? Move my entire row to let me out which would be more disturbing for more people? It would have upset my daughter as she wouldn't want to have been left alone......all I could do was wait until the interval to tell her and ask what could be done. Bit the whole first half of the show was ruined for me.

@UsernameInTheTown

Grass them up to the ushers. That always sorts the problem .

Not in my experience. I go to a lot of shows and I have yet to see an usher do anything ( especially when I was verbally attacked and threatened right beside an usher by a very drunk woman who didn’t think I stood up quick enough to let her back in after her 10th visit to the loo!)

All I have seen them do is stand at the end of the row hoping that will shut these drunken idiots up - it doesn’t!

It’s why I gave up on the Pantomime. I know it’s more interactive but the last time after over £100 spent on tickets it turned out it was the day over 100 very young school kids were there with their teachers and they ran mad! Running up and down the aisles yelling with very little visible supervision. Shouting, fighting, crying - it was awful. Such a disappointment as we had gone every year and school groups had been there and it was nothing like that. Too expensive to risk it again.

@tcjotm

Mamma Mia is a tricky one as they encourage the standing up and singing. I went to a final dress rehearsal performance - though it was very professional, I wouldn’t really have known except I had the tickets from a theatre friend - and they wanted everyone up singing and dancing. Might’ve been a bit different as it wasn’t quite the usual ‘general public’ crowd, but it set the tone and I’m sure plenty of people went again,

I think this must have been different because I’ve seen Mamma Mia a quite few times (a couple was for work!) and while standing up and dancing at the end in the mega mix bit is allowed you’re not meant to be up dancing during the rest. Same for singing along - a PP said it was ok at Mamma Mia but really it isn’t!

It’s so tricky for theatres (I used to work in one) as everyone has different ideas about how to enjoy it and what level of interaction they want.

In general though your jukebox shows do have more problems as it’s the shows where some people do want to have a drink and a sing /dance along and don’t quite get the difference between a tribute concert/act and a theatre show.

This piece ran this week - it really must be bad for theatre bosses to be speaking out!

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/people/playhouse-boss-condemns-behaviour-of-audience-members-who-abuse-his-staff-3586456%3famp&fbclid=IwAR0Qqaa4pEL4mDKi8jpKugj5dc4AueJqiuw6Gemqm0jrgmjSdlRjEQedpG4

@OmgIThinkILikeYou I’m not OP and haven’t seen it in the theatre but I watched Come From Away on Apple TV last year, they released it around the anniversary of 9/11, not sure if it’s still available. I absolutely loved it, I cried at a couple of parts (and I’m not generally a crier at things!) but overall it’s so uplifting. I really want to see it live but live far from London so haven’t been able to yet.

Moulin Rouge was spoilt a few weeks back by a group of women shouting and singing. They sell bottles of Prosecco to take into the theatre which seems foolish. People were shushing them but no one intervened.

I’ve seen lots of theatre actors tweeting about bad audience behaviour recently, so think it is objectively getting worse

I’m generally nervous about getting an usher if I see bad behaviour because to do so would mean disturbing everyone in my row to get in and out and then if the person is sat in the middle of a section, I’m not sure how easy it is to the usher to actually do anything anyway, certainly without disturbing everyone in the process.

Wish theatres didn’t allow late comers in until the interval though! And I think there should be sn announcement about not singing/dancing etc when then announce about mobile phones. Obviously the aresholes will ignore it, but at least then people who genuinely don’t know will be told and the arseholes can’t claim they weren’t told.

Oh this makes me so angry! Theatre tickets are so dear and very often it’s a big treat to go (for us anyway), only for it to be spoiled by these wankers.

Agree theatres need to crack down. If you can’t behave appropriately, just go to the pub and give the rest of us a better chance of getting a ticket.

I remember my grandfather taking us to the panto when I was about 8 and being completely spellbound throughout, and have loved a live performance ever since.

I’m glad, reading this, that I mostly go to the ballet at the Royal Opera House.

However we did see Only Fools and Horses recently. The audience was ok! Just seemed happy and engaged. If anyone really close to me was talking, I would tell them to be quiet. I did do this in an art gallery recently as 2 people were talking loudly in a film installation with narration. No one could hear it. Several people thanked me but the women doing most of the telling has boomed out in every room of the exhibition. I just think some people are simply not aware of what they do is not acceptable and it’s bad manners to not respect other people.

I’ve tickets to see Jerusalem with Mark Rylance and Mackenzie Crook in June so I am anticipating rapt silence!

Couple of years ago, I gave some teenagers a very teachery telling off in the interval of a play after enduring their talking, rustling and phones for the first half. The friend I was with was embarrassed, but (thankfully!) it did the job.

Selling snacks (why, why) in noisy crinkly packs by the cinemas/ theatres seems purely asking for trouble.

I so wish that they were not a feature in cinemas and theatres. The endless crackling of the packaging gets on my very last nerve.

@Meandthesky
I’m with you over latecomers too. The Royal Opera House won’t let you in if the performance has started. Their ticket prices are sky high and standards are maintained. Elsewhere disturbing others is seen as ok.

I’m generally nervous about getting an usher

It would be useful to have a complaints phone number you could txt from your seat. Giving your seat number and who and where is the problem.

I've got to the point where I challenge it, loudly. And, if it doesn't stop, I challenge it again. Nobody's chit-chat or urge for Maltesers should trump me having to save for months to take my (quiet) kids to the theatre. I'm thinking of getting my phone out at the cinema when it happens to record and then request refunds. The 17 year old ushers just seem powerless to tackle the entitled "We're hungry" troglodyte adults.

My daughter and I were discussing theatre etiquette last night as we were discussing our upcoming London trip. I said there are shows that I would actively avoid because of the reported audience problems. Jersey Boys and The Drifters Girl have both had show stops recently due to audience members FIGHTING!
I walked out of Grease at Leeds Grand Theatre before Christmas as some members of the audience had no respect for the actors or those sitting around them - I have never left at the interval for a show before.
Theatres need to crack down on this selfish bad behaviour.