Booze in theatres

[Conniebygaslight]

We go to various theatres probably about half a dozen times a year to see different things, musicals, comedians, plays, audience with....etc.
Every single time over the last couple of years there has been groups or couples who are constantly shouting out from their seats, always women (usually middle aged) and always off their faces drunk. They completely spoil the show.
We've had women fighting in the foyer, or passed out drunk and/or just generally being very loud and obnoxious./aggressive
We went to see comedian last night and again the 2 women behind us were ridiculous and we had to move.
When did boozing in theatres become the norm?
For reference I'm a middle aged woman who is also a drinker but I can manage a night at the theatre without one.
AIBU to say that alcohol is becoming part of everything nowadays and nowhere is safe from drunken louts?

I’ve never seen it at plays but I have seen it at musicals and similar. I have no idea why people feel the need to get utterly plastered. I have a few, don’t get me wrong, but I know my limits.

Alcohol has always been available in theatres but I agree people drink too much and behave like yobs no matter where they are.

Yes, but it was measured. You may have had one pre-threatre drink and one in the interval. No drinks were allowed to be taken into the auditorium. Likewise with food. Ice cream in the interval not a backpack full of goodies from poundland!

I had one insufferable performance where a woman ate her way through a tube of Pringles, interspersed with offering her family whole a picnic. It was a ballet FFS! You don't open Pringles during a pas de deux!

Same experience as you OP and have unfortunately been the victim of an assault due to it. I took my 8 year old DD to a matinee performance of a musical in Edinburgh. The two ladies behind us were very drunk before the performance began and from curtains up, kept shouting out the lines before the actors and sang very loudly.

I politely asked if she wouldn't mind singing a little bit lower as we were struggling to hear the actors and not only did I get a whole load of verbal abuse but they spent the entire first half kicking the back of both mine and DD chairs whilst singing even louder. I did my best to ignore it whilst trying to reassure DD who was confused as to what was going on and becoming upset. At the interval as I stood to go to bathroom I was sworn at and subject to more abuse. I spoke to a steward who came and spoke to them and informed them of several complaints and he was also given much abuse but they were allowed to remain with a warning of being removed if they carried on and reminded that it was not a sing along performance.

They were quiet for all of 10 minutes then it started up again, only this time shouting out abuse and swearing about me, a steward stood at the end of their row but did nothing (I was middle of the row and really didn't want to cause a scene by getting up mid performance silly I know) just before the end I was given a load more abuse and then punched in the back of the head at which point they were finally removed whilst I was dealing with the shock of being hit and a sobbing DD. It ruined the whole experience for us and the whole performance and left me an anxious wreck that they would be waiting outside to continue their behaviour towards me.

The whole experience was horrendous, DD and I loved going to the theatre before this but now it's made DD fearful of going again.

That's appalling. I hope you went after the theatre for an apology/compensation/assurances about how they were going to manage their audiences in future?

And of course you could have reported them to the police for assault.

For stand up comedy I would kind of expect a lot of people to be tiddly. For, I dunno, a Harold Pinter play, not so much.

I do think that the qaulity of theatre has gone down, there seem to be fewer original productions and more stage versions of well known movies or TV shows. So maybe that partly accounts for it.

I also think that two years of lockdown has led to a slippage in societal standards/mores of how people should behave around each other in a public place

Honestly I was just so stunned by the whole thing I didn't know how to react in the moment as I've never been in that situation before in my life. I've encountered rowdy people in a theatre but never to that level and never targeted at me.

I emailed the theatre a few days later once I'd had time to process it asking what their policy is for this type of behaviour, explaining what had happened to me and asked what steps would be taken to ensure this didn't happen to anyone again. I got a pretty standard email back ignoring most of my points except to say they were sorry I hadn't enjoyed the performance and had a bad experience and that they will take on board my feedback.

It's safe to say I won't ever consider going to that theatre again and will travel further afield in future.

I think, again, the increase in versions of existing material is largely down to the need to get bums on seats/keep theatres viable.
While I've no problem with 'mainstream' or 'popular' theatre, whatever you want to call it, I do think it's sad if those are the only kind of productions that can be viable.

That's shocking. They should have chucked those people out immediately and, failing that, called the police when you got punched. Trying to minimise it is unacceptable. I would honestly take it to social media and make sure people know how little this theatre cares about audience safety.

Some of these experiences are shocking. At this rate theatres will need to be policed like football matches.

deleted.

I think you might be cursed OP!!

I go to the theatre regularly in my city or in London, probably 12-15 times a year.

I have never experienced this. And no, it’s not because I am the problem, I don’t drink alcohol!!

Probably just part of the general increase in people not giving a shot about how their behaviour affects others. I haven't noticed heavy drinking in the theatre although we did go to the Lion King recently and I was surprised at the amount of general noise the audience were making, and I mean adults not kids. A couple behind us chatting all the way through. Another couple in front checking their phones every 10 minutes. A general hum of audience voices and munching throughout. It's expensive so why pay all that money to not focus on the show.

I agree OP we go regularly and have seen a decline in behaviour. Not every time but it definitely happens. People don’t get that the theatre isn’t a concert.

We were talking to someone last night who said they were at the theatre and the performance was halted while a couple got thrown out because the cast complained!

I went to Abba Voyage and a group of about 10 people got thrown out for dancing in the seated area and being horribly rude. They were warned a number of times. Total waste of money. I can’t see why having a few drinks equates to getting hammered.

Oh my goodness, that's so awful. Really sorry to read that.

I have been going to the theatre for over 30 years. Behaviour has definitely got worse since the theatres re-opened after covid. My daughter has worked as an usher in several theatres (regional and west end) and has witnessed fights and all sorts. She herself has been assaulted.

This has been covered in the news over the last couple of years, with a handful of productions having to be stopped mid performance due to poor audience behaviour. It's certainly not new, and you're certainly not BU! I'm a fairly regular theatre goer, and it's definitely far worse than it used to be. But theatres make money from refreshments, so there's a definite challenge there too.

I love the theatre, but I increasingly am put off going by this issue.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/hamilton-manchester-fight-palace-theatre-b2454058.html

variety.com/2023/legit/news/bodyguard-musical-halted-mini-riot-audience-singing-along-1235577476/amp/

Just two examples...

And on the 'type of productions that attract this behaviour' comments, we saw King Lear at the globe more than ten years ago. The phone of a woman sitting in front of us rang loudly, which in itself was bad enough. What however was worse, was that she answered the call and then went on to have a phone conversation at usual volume, from her seat. This prompted lots of glaring, tutting and sighting from the rest of us, but no-one actually did anything about it.

*sighing

It was the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh that ejected the rude audience member at Ballet Rambert. They did react to the complaint. I think some types of performance need clear warnings about what behaviour is expected. Any singing along (I would have been livid if this had happened at Sunset Boulevard - Nicole Sherzinger was amazing!) should be an immediate ejection if it’s not a sing along event. Ditto talking, tipping over drink and noisy eating.

@PatriciaHolm Yes, the ROH is still a great experience!

James Norton was excellent in this very harrowing role. He was on stage the whole time and, as his role was of someone's long term physical and sexual abuse, it must have been exhausting - especially as he was going to repeat the performance in the evening. I'm sorry I didn't simply @TizerorFizz . I've just worked it out. No more whole quote for me!

I can never get my head around the covid thing in terms of behaviour - surely if you were a decent respectful person before lockdowns you don't just become an entitled arsehole after? Would make an interesting study to see just why behaviour seems to have deteriorated since then. I don't get why having to stay at home would suddenly mean you lose the ability to be civilised, assuming you weren't an arse in the first place!

I've had a few experiences recently where groups had definitely smuggled in booze from outside and made the performance pretty unwatchable. We were next to a mother and daughter at Moulin Rouge who sang along loudly to every number despite being asked to stop by several other people. Then Pretty Woman in Manchester was totally disrupted by a really drunk woman and her friends. Mind you it was a pretty shoddy show.

It was a long period of a situation that was alien to, I think, almost everyone. I can well imagine it eroding the sense of how to behave in public.

I do think, though, there must be some people who were already predisposed to thinking it's OK to look at your phone/talk loudly in the cinema/theatre etc, who are now out in the wild and doing just that. I think it's exaggerated people's personalities and behaviour rather than completely changed it out of nowhere.