Embarrassed Edinburgh family 'told off for miming' along to Annie at Playhouse- how can they think they're in the right?!

[MichelleScarn]

https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/embarrassed-edinburgh-family-told-miming-26567374

How on earth can they think that this behaviour was OK?
Bloody rude and probably spoiled it for people around them!

The theatre - even the cinema - are expensive treats, both held entirely in the hands of the dickheads in the audience. Phones should be locked in pouches for both - I cannot understand the mentality of paying so much for a ticket and then staring at your phone, just stay at home! And the constant talking. It's bizarre that people will spend the money only to chat amongst themselves, and that they have no shame or compunction in ruining other people's experience.

I blame social media. No one can simply go and enjoy seeing a show anymore, there has to be a whole “come with me”
saga for their followers, a photoshoot in the auditorium and 25 billion videos of them singing along having “the best night ever”.
Attention seeking desperados everywhere.

How on earth can you possibly derive than interpretation from OP's message?

Comprehension fail, @Villssev!

No. You pay to hear the cast not the audience.

Why on earth would I want to pay for a ticket to a musical and then listen to you screeching along out of tune in the aisles?

Ruuuude! I was singing perfectly in tune!😂

These are the types of people who appear on the Facebook page "angry people in local newspapers" and they always, without exception get totally flamed in the comments 🤣

Hmm. Swaying and miming in their seats, with drinks in hand, and having a laugh, and the steward said " no" and waved her hands at them. That's shocking treatment 🙄. I'm embarrassed for them. I'm just waiting for audience participation at the next Mission Impossible film. Bring your own stunt double.

No, you aren't. Other people in the audience don't go to the theatre to listen to YOU.

They say they were ‘swaying’

People usually minimise what they were up to, so let’s allow for arms in the air, miming a mic, general theatricals.

If you think that you can go to a musical and sing along, please don't ever go to the cinema to see Gunfight At The OK Corral!

There's nothing wrong with miming in your seat, as long as you aren't making any sound at all and no body parts other than your lips are moving; but I'm guessing they were probably full-on jazz hands and acting it out too - the key phrase is 'miming it TO EACH OTHER'.

I blame Strictly, tbh. Everyone in the audience clapping along. They'd do it to the waltzes if they could work out where the beat was.

I'm nearly 50 and I honestly did not know you weren't supposed to sing along in musicals but it does make sense. Never felt the need to do it myself, just as I wouldn't at the cinema. The only musical I've ever been to where they've said no singing is We Will Rock You

If all they had been doing was sitting still and silently miming along, nobody else would have known in the dark, much less needed the stewards to intervene.

This is ridiculous. It's a musical! Aren't you SUPPOSED to sing along in the aisles?

No. You pay money to hear professional singers sing. Imagine the caterwauling mess if all the audience sang.

It says that they were miming to each other and swaying. If it was to "it's a hard knock life", then you can bet that there was exaggerated movements etc. They admitted that they had drinks in their hands. That means that the people in front were in danger of getting swilled and at the least people either side and right behind them were disturbed.

The staff at the Edinburgh Playhouse have had such a hard time recently with audience members behaving really badly.

www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/crime/edinburgh-playhouse-director-colin-marr-says-enough-is-enough-after-staff-punched-spat-on-and-pushed-4019031

It has got a lot worse recently, although people's behaviour in theatres has been awful for a very long time. I went to see the play version of Trainspotting and one of the actors told the audience to shut up and switch their phones off, in character, and that was back in 2007.

On their own admission they were swaying and having a laugh. I'm guessing quite exaggerated swaying, waving glasses around, jazz hands etc. It was clearly enough to attract attention, which means people's attention was being distracted from the stage.

pixie5121 that is a shame but I've never really experienced any of those things apart from watching a comedian and a group of women hysterically laughed every time he so much as breathed 🤨

I loved the implication they made that they couldn't be drunk because of their age or the price of the tickets. Methinks they doth protest a little too much, especially since nobody had alleged they were drunk. So I am going with them having had too much to drink before the show and causing trouble for people around them.

Please don’t go to a theatre

This seems to have been a problem with this stuff at The Playhouse post covid and they have zero tolerance. There's been more than one article in the papers about people complaining they have been ejected. Musical tickets are extortionate and no-one wants their evening spoiled by others singing/miming by over excited drunk/not drunk people. Its not a sing along. If you can't control the urge to sing don't go.

Naw, I don't go pay to watch a bunch of big weans in the audience caterwauling like strangled cats.

Unless it's panto.

It's visually distracting, attention-grabbing shitty behaviour that undermines the actual performances on stage.

If there's an auditorium full of people around you who've paid their hard-earned money to see professionals perform, how is arsing about in your seat, miming and having a laugh, fair to them? Even if you make no noise it's annoying as hell.

And how is it respectful of the people on stage, whose entire job is to hold the audience's attention?