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 terrible, and I find it shocking.

I find this very surprising. I've taken DS to various west end shows and also our local SW London theatre and have never seen anything like this. Even the "relaxed performances"

The only thing I can think of was seeing the woman in black c.2005 and they had to stop the show to ask a school group to not be over dramatically scared/screaming etc.

Child free places/performances/whatever were created due to crap parenting/lack of concern/ignorance from parents in the OP.

Yeah, I never want to temper down the enjoyment, but I’d definitely be there supporting her and making sure she’s not running up on stage and stuff

That's terrible! I'm in an amateur theatre group that puts on an annual panto, including a matinee where small kids make up a lot of the audience, and so far we've never had feral behaviour, thank goodness. OK, often the kids are quite noisy and up and down in their seats, and it can make it hard to concentrate on our lines 😄 but their parents or group leaders tend to at least make an effort to manage things, and obviously we realise some noise and high spirits are inevitable (and hopefully means they're having fun, as we want them to).

But blimey, we've never had kids try to come up on stage, distract performers or actually damage equipment. How awful for the performers. Shame on the parents or whoever was supposedly in charge of these kids - they should have been taken outside and told pack it in or we're going home.

@2010Aussie Steward asked parent to keep children under control as they were a danger to themselves and others. Reply "They are only two."

I hate that but speaking from experience the excuse will grow with the child "They are only two/six/eight" and when they become teens it changes to "They are only young."

Apart from SEN and most parents will manage that carefully, there is no excuse. Poor parenting, lazy and ignorant.

Having said that, a few years ago a colleague and I were organising an arts event. We had put a lot of unpaid time into it which we were happy to do. A man who thought he was being funny kept disrupting everything with stupid comments and look-at-me behaviour. I stopped everything and announced very clearly that either he left or I did. As I was in charge the event would have ended there, with about 100 people disappointed. There was a stunned silence but I just stood there with raised eyebrows. After a minute or two he was escorted out by another colleague, followed by his embarrassed wife,never to be seen again.

Behave or get out. I would have it printed on every ticket.