To think children should be made to behave in a theatre?

[Sziasztok]

Went to an amateur pantomime on a Friday, that a friend was performing in. It was in the theatre of a local school. During the entire performance, kids were running all over the theatre, including climbing up on the stage to scream at and prod the performers. They paused the performance twice to ask parents to keep their children off the stage (at one point, one little shit, who looked to be about 8, was at the front of the stage, kicking and trying to smash the lights). Two kids stood in the aisle and had a screaming competition. Again, they paused the performance as no-one could hear anything.

I asked my friend if it was always that bad. She said that the matinées that they did for schools were fine, as the teachers didn’t allow bad behaviour and any disruptive child was either told off or removed. But the evening performances always had to be paused at least once to get kids off the stage, and parents seemed to think it was cute/funny.

To be clear, it wasn’t just one or two kids who were disruptive, it was the vast majority of them. And it wasn’t the normal interaction with the cast (“He’s behind you!”) or inviting the kids on stage, it ruined the whole performance. Is this normal behaviour these days? Mine would have been removed or read the riot act if they had behaved like this.

That's absolutely shocking.

Mine would be whisked out at the first of any bad behaviour - not that she would r ever has, because she's not a little savage.

I've seen similar and quite honestly it makes me not want to take mine places where I think we’ll encounter it. Not only does it ruin things for them but they also don’t understand why they aren’t allowed to behave like the other kids, especially when there are no repercussions.

I am horrified almost daily by children’s behaviour. You say it in these threads and someone always pull out the Aristotle (I think) quote about children having always been badly behaved etc etc but I have been a nanny/teacher/parent for the last 15 years and in the last five years some (many) parents just refuse to parent their children and seem to think awful behaviour is funny or seem completely helpless to stop it

The problem is that people accept it. The kids and their families should have been asked to leave.

I hate it when that quote comes out because it’s a myth, Socrates never said it, it was written in 1907!

(quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehave/?amp=1)

Yes. It's not just children, it's people

People arriving late or going in and out when they feel like it.

People getting their phones out even when reminded not to.

Noisy and constant eating

In one case a woman was talking on her phone till the usher told her off.

And also parents not stopping their children behaving badly. I was kicked in the back repeatedly by a child at a recent performance we went to and even though I made their parents aware they did nothing to stop it. The child was at least 13 I reckon.

I blame the parents. They're ignorant sods.

Maybe they thought because it was amateur, the performers and stage crew deserved no respect? Totally wrong and again, hugely ignorant of them. They're working hard, for nothing, to put on a show. And parents allow their children to scream and destroy the evening.

Now I know why my train carriage was invaded by 16 year old lads smoking, drinking and shouting obscenities for over an hour.

Some people should not be allowed to have had children. Having children rarely makes anyone a better person - quite the reverse, it seems.

Where on earth were you? I’ve been going to pantos and children’s theatres in Surrey and Sussex for the last eight years and have never encountered anything remotely like this!

we went to see the new Moana at the cinema recently - a group of children were being disruptive and they paused it, asked them all to leave, and then cracked on.

This behaviour sounds horrendous - but surely the job of the ushers is to warm and then remove children (and their parents) that are behaving so appallingly? It’s hard to fathom why it was allowed to escalate so badly

We haven’t been to a pantomime in years as DS is 15 now and there was no behaviour like that then but I can’t say I’m surprised now.

We had an amateur dramatic show at the village hall we volunteered at the other weekend. It wasn’t really child friendly at all but one family brought a child. The advertisements all clearly stated there was cheese and biscuits included in the interval. When we took them out, the dad asked if we had anything else as his child doesn’t like cheese and biscuits 😵. Mind you, we also had an older lady kicking off because there was no free tea and coffee 🤷‍♀️.

We went to see Peter Kay last weekend and the show had to be postponed for 15 minutes as there were still people flooding in all with massive 2 pint glasses and snacks. If you know you’re running late, don’t stop to buy drinks and snacks or turn up early given that the venue opened 90 mins before the show was meant to start.

I've been to four different pantomimes this year (for my sins) and haven't seen a single instance of the behaviour you're describing and one of those was at a Haven where the parenting was.... loose.

Not surprised, we went to see Matilda in the West End, so not cheap tickets. In front of us sat what I think was a pair of grandparents and four children, who all behaved appallingly, (moving around constantly, changing seats, talking etc ) it was so bad that I hissed in the woman’s ear and told her to make them sit and be quiet or I would call the ushers! They were slightly better behaved after that. When they left at the end the six seats they used were littered with sweet wrappers, torn up programmes, ice cream containers and drink cartons, I would have been ashamed to leave a space so filthy. They weren’t tiny children, I suppose the youngest was about 6 so well able to engage with the show.

I think people are afraid to challenge it.

You don;t get this type of bad behaviour in working class areas. Its middle class parents to blame.

The child that tried to smash the lights ! Sat here open mouthed !

Mind you, it’s not just children. A few years ago there was an access performance at the Royal Opera House, and we paid something like £20 for amazing stalls seats. The people in the row behind us ate a takeaway meal all through Act 1.

My idea of hell.

Definitely not typical in my experience. It’s almost always been adults who have disrupted shows I’ve been to in the last few years.

It was in an affluent part of the South East. And there were no ushers, the cast did everything from cloakroom, collecting tickets, serving drinks in the interval.

My kids are adults now, but when they were little, DD2 used to push boundaries with her behaviour. Once she had been removed from a restaurant for misbehaving and a cinema for misbehaving, she didn’t do it again, because she knew we would follow through with our threat to remove her. (She was about three at the time.)

I also think people are afraid to challenge bad behaviour because they know they’re likely to get a mouthful of abuse.

I had something similar years ago
I was a single parent,very little money and had saved and saved so I could take the kids to see monsters University at the cinema as they where dying to see it and I wanted to treat them
I gave mine the riot act before we went in,sat them down and it started
Unfortunately,so did the group of kids just in front of us (they where about the same age as my youngest-about 7/8)
Screaming,shouting,throwing sweets,running around,crying,slapping each other and just being pains in the arses-4 adults who seemed to be with them just sat and ignored them
I had to leave mine with their big sister while I went out to complain
Which didn't go down well with the adults who seemed to think we where in the wrong and kept glaring and huffing at us,but didnt stop their kids-in fact they seemed to get worse and ruined what should have been a real treat for my lot
This would have been about 6pm so not massively late but for fuck sake-if mine can sit and behave,other kids can too
I did complain to the cinema but heard nothing back

I was at a carol service a few days ago and the 2 kids in front of me were behaving atrociously, including talking loudly when people were doing the readings. One was pretty young and one of the parents should have just taken they out but the other child was definitely old enough to know better. They had all sorts of entertainment with them as well, books, toys, food and a phone. No wonder kids can't concentrate on anything if they need so many things to entertain them in a 40 minute carol service. It's not like any of it even worked as they were causing such a scene. It spoilt it for me and I couldn't move as I was trapped at the wrong end of a row.

But ur dd is enjoying herself. Good for her

I feel like we’re quite firm with our two year old and take this approach.

We went to see a performance of Stickman yesterday and some children who talked throughout it, so loudly we could hear the full conversation from a few rows back.

I don’t know if that’s normal and to be expected, but we’ve been teaching our toddler to whisper during theatre performances, or we’d take him out if he got quite loud.
Luckily, he’s done really well and sits through them and this all may change, but I think we need to set expectations from early on, but some parents don’t do.

Children sometimes put their best face on when they’re at school, and then it can all fall apart when they’re with their ‘safe’ people. I don’t think that’s so terrible

It's not terrible to have different behaviour with your safe people necessarily but it's not fair to ruin a performance for other people. That isn't acceptable.

was invited to one on these declined for that reason and told school this too