Rude people in the theatre

[Katrinawaves]

What goes through people’s heads when they behave poorly in the theatre? We go quite regularly but it’s becoming more and more common to have people chat through the performance or arrive late or leave early.

Last night we went to see Punch at the Apollo which is a really emotionally challenging play which relies heavily on the audience investing in the main characters. There was a woman in the row behind us who had dropped her phone just as the play was starting and was loudly asking everyone around her if they had seen it over the top of the actors performing and moving around and craning in her seat. When she finally found her phone she didn’t bother switching it off, so of course mid way through the first act, it rang loudly and then she couldn’t find it again to silence it quickly so she swore loudly and huffed and puffed until she could! After the interval when she got back to her seat, she again chatted loudly to her companion for the first few minutes of the performance.

it’s so rude and disrespectful both to the performers but also to other theatre goers who have paid £150+ for a seat to watch the play not to listen to somebody’s mundane life dramas!

There was even a spoken announcement at the beginning of the show asking people not to talk or eat noisy food and to switch their phone off so in the unlikely event she didn’t know what normal social etiquette requires she was actually told seconds before she started to act like a toddler.

AIBU to think the theatre staff should ask anyone who makes such a disturbance in the first half of a play to leave at the interval as a deterrent to others and to ensure that they don’t spoil the whole play for others.

We recently saw War Horse in Cardiff. I counted 30 phones going off, at least. Also - crisps, loud food, littering. Really awful behaviour.

I’ve also given up on the local Everyman cinema as although a nice venue, people seem to order three course meals during the film. All I can hear is chomping, rustling and slurping!

Phones in the theatre drive me to distraction. Last night at the Royal Opera House the man next to me kept checking the time on his phone every five minutes (it was the opera and I think he was bored). The man on the other side of DH kept fidgeting and every time he moved his watch screen kept lighting up. To be fair the ushers were very much on the ball with people and phones but even so.

Like others I find the West End theatres worse than local theatre which is why we tend to stick to going local if possible.

Interestingly, we went to see a little touring circus last night. Small children were quickly hushed by their parents apart from when the clowns were on and I didn’t hear any noise from the adults.

oh good to know that they are actually doing it in some cases. Was it in London by the way? I think the fact that performers stopped made this happened.
Our local theatre staff doesn’t look very autocratic or/ and gladiatory so I was struggling to imagine them in this situation.

I think there’s a massive problem in that front of house staff outside of London are volunteers and the training for how to deal with stuff like this is really lacking.

TBF that’s the cinema’s USP - so it’s more a cinema issue rather than a behavioural issue

Me too. Having the sights, sounds and smells of a stranger chomping on a burger right next to your face is vile even if you were not watching a film. Nowhere else would you be expected to endure a stranger eating within inches of your face.

We went to see Dear Evan Hansen in Cardiff, which opens with a scene of dialogue. I'd never seen it before and had no idea what it was about. As soon as the actors started talking, a woman sitting beside my daughter started rustling around in a bag. She rustled throughout the scene, stopped for the song, then started again with the next dialogue. I was getting more and more angry, because all I could hear was the rustling and not the dialogue, so on scene 4 I sat forwards and leaned around my DD and told her to just stop.

She looked really shocked and did actually stop. I was terrified she was going to have a go during the interval but no comeback. DD said there were actually 3 of them in a row all with sweets. At the end of the interval she tipped them into her lap so she could eat them without the rummaging.

Edinburgh playhouse, the staff are ruthless, they don’t take any prisoners 🤣

It's everywhere, cinemas, theatres, gigs..so breathtakingly entitled behaviour from a few. I am, admittedly very noise sensitive so I have to have a word with myself if it's just low level noise. But the phone thing is just blood boiling- put your phone away for the love of god!
The oddest one I encountered was at a theatre performance and in the lulls of dialogue/music I could hear a cat miaowing! It was persistent so I mentioned it to an usher at the interval and they returned to tell me it was a child with additional needs, and this was delivered with a you should feel bad now for complaining' tone! How on earth was I supposed to know that, it properly sounded like a cat or at least a ring tone. And it was still very distracting so 🤷

Perhaps part of the reason that some places have zero tolerance is because the audience itself has zero tolerance (the tickets are too bloody expensive to put up with annoyances) and the sheer power of peer pressure makes people behave.

Not saying that I told off the person sitting in front of me during a performance of the Royal Ballet the other day, but I might have done. 😂

I used to be an usher/ette at the Liverpool Playhouse, when I was at university. We were given strict rules about not admitting late-comers. Also, the only food/s sold were ice creams at the interval.

Don’t get me started on this! We paid nesrly £100 a ticket for Hamilton and the couple behind me chatted throughout - in their 60s and obviously had also paid the same amount. At Moulin Rouge the other week, pissed woman next to me staggered to the seat, chatted and sang through the first half, thankfully didn’t return as she couldn’t get back down the steps for the second half. At the same show, two men nearly had a punch up half way through the second half. Honestly it pisses me off, also people up and down to the toilet and the bar during the show. A lot of it is down to alcohol in my experience - people can’t go anywhere without getting pissed.

AIBU to think the theatre staff should ask anyone who makes such a disturbance in the first half of a play to leave at the interval as a deterrent to others and to ensure that they don’t spoil the whole play for others.

Unenforceable though, isn't it?

So you go up to a member of staff during the interval, and say someone behind you was chatting during the performance.

What are they supposed to do with that information?

Are they supposed to look at the hundreds of people going to the bar/toilet/outside to vape etc, and pick them out of the crowd using your vague description?

Or are they supposed to wait until they're seated, squeeze past all the theatre goers to challenge them in their seat, and spoil the second half of the performance?

Do you think they'd hold their hands up and admit it anyway?

Yes, I know it’s what they offer and small snacks are fine (if eaten considerately), but full blown meals etc and a lot of people make more noise eating these days than my two large dogs devouring their kibble is not my thing.

I don't understand why the bar isn't closed during the performance

They're too afraid of offending anyone.
Down and down we go....

I agree, it’s like the performance is now seen as a background activity to everyone’s eating and drinking. I have to really want to see something these days to bother putting up with the rest of the audience. I think I’ve officially reached the old and complaining age range! 😂

Welcome!! It's liberating

I was at the royal opera house last week where a family had brought a young child who made a massive fuss at the beginning of the performance and after the interval. Fortunately it didn't last long, but I have no idea why you would bring such a small child to the opera.

Went to see Sheku Kanneh-Mason playing Shostakovich. Yes, I did lean forward and ask the man in front who was watching the football on his phone to put it away.

Exactly. Also don’t understand why people have to have a drink to enjoy themselves.

How long doe it take to eat a burger?, shorter than most films i'm guessing

We had a difficult time with rude theatre goers on Thursday at the Noel Coward theatre.

First of all, man next to dd17 didn’t take his seat til the last second (fine but this is why we didn’t swap seats) and was sitting half into her space all the way through the first half. Taking up the arm rest as well as her general space. Apparently whilst sitting down he was muttering something about “women” but I didn’t hear that.

Then in the interval whilst we were queuing for the loo, he was directly rude to her because apparently he couldn’t get past - there was tons of room, and she was taking the minimum about of space a person possibly could.

This man was not tall or large in any way, and he had ample room to pass her.

Because she was really upset by this, we asked to move seats and were moved.

The man she was next to in the second half kept laughing incredibly loudly and aggressively all the way through, in a way that made it impossible to relax and enjoy the show. This was after having sshhed us AFTER WE’D STOPPED TALKING has the play began again - I’d just been explaining to the woman beside me why we’d been moved, but had stopped talking. When he was the one who needed to be sshhed with his aggressive loud laughing.

DD ended up in tears on the way home because she’d behaved so politely and unobtrusively all the way through, and still be subject to these horrible rude men!