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.

No i agree its annoying but if it gets more bums on seats, its over all good, and it doesn't last v long

Phones are annoying everywhere, I moved chairs in the hospital waiting room as some guy next to me was playing chess every time he made a move whoop ping! Just mute it!!

Do they think they're in their own home? Disrespectful arse holes. I actually say something, on one occasion a woman was glugging water. Every gulp you could hear and then a burp and a sigh, and as you said, it costs money but I don't go to hear Mrs Fuckwit. The actor actually looked up to the circle. TOM HIDDLESTON! Anyway I said "I didn't come here to hear you". She shut up. Also a "be quiet" and staff do intervene if they are aware. Turn your bloody phone off or fuck off.

You are much more polite than I am, I'd just ask her to be quiet or I'd ask the theatre staff to evict her.

It’s the same with the cinema. I have actually stopped going to regular cinemas as every time I went there was some sort of antisocial behaviour. Talking loudly, checking social media on their phones, even making a phone call. My daughter politely asked a couple of women if they would mind wrapping up their conversation and was told to fuck off!!! Now I will only go to indie cinemas where people who are actually interested in seeing the film go and have had no problems. Only trouble is they mostly only show old films so I have to wait to see any blockbusters when they go to streaming.

We went to local theatre on Fri night...only a talk in small theatre but we'd spent£££ on tickets. Queue to get in (but quickly moving, not long to wait). Some hag (should have been on her broomstick) pushed in at front and gave assistant scanning tickets a real shouting at over 'I have tickets....I shouldn't have to queue'. By the time she'd finished her rant another 30+ people could have got in and had tickets scanned. The assistant looked very upset.
I'm afraid its (usually) middle aged women who create disturbance. It embarrasses me (as a woman) as it is/was so unnecessary and the rudeness uncalled for.

So good to read all of this. maybe the silent majority are starting to fight back? As for the venue having little power, why do they allow late-comers to enter the auditorium and take their seats. I took this up with the cinema company running one in north Bristol after two couples, arriving together eleven minutes in, ruined the start of a performance. The part which set the story. The contradictory reply I received boiled down to it being wrong for them to protect the majority of ticket payers when they can make four more ticket sales.

Around 40 years ago, my Mum took me to see Peter Egan in Macbeth at our local, provincial theatre. I was 14 and loved Ever Decreasing Circles and I think Mum hoped to inspire me with some Shakespeare! The local school (not my school) had brought the O level class and I suspect many had never been to the theatre before. They whispered loudly and rustled sweet papers, much to everyone’s frustration. In the middle of his “Is this a dagger I see before me” speech, Peter Egan turned to the audience and said “oh this is really tedious. Either be quiet or leave. You need to learn how to behave.” There was a deathly silence, nobody moved and he restarted the speech. The teachers were at fault really for not nipping it in the bud early. Anyway I have thought about it every time I have seen Peter Egan on TV over the last 40 years. (Still not much of a Shakespeare fan, sorry Mum!)

The same in the cinema. Don’t go to senior citizen showings who unwrap sweets and rustle crisp packets and criticise the acting and the props.
I turned round to two elderly ladies to be quiet and was told to ‘fack orf’. 😆😆

Did you turn round and ask her to be quiet? I agree it's terrible behaviour. I like the cinema but each time I go, I vow never to go again because of other people talking, eating, using phones etc.

It's sadly the same all over and does my head in. I was on the train yesterday and a group with kids was watching stuff out loud, each kid something different. I have a toddler so I know train travel can be a pain but headphones exist. The parents then took turns clipping their fingernails! They must have had a hundred fingers each for amount of grating click clicks I heard from them 😅 but how grim, someone else will have to clean that up, they could have done it in the loos over the sink even but no, at the seat with bits of fingernail flying about.

Cinema experiences are dreadful too, loud chatting, attention seeking, and people just cannot not look at their phone for 3 hours max. Lit like beacons distracting through the film so they can count their isnta likes or keep up their streak.

Throw them out of the theatre. Make it clear that is what will happen at the start. Or, when you enter the theatre, everyone puts their phones into a Faraday pouch that blocks mobile phone signals, only getting them back at the end of the show. They do this at some music gigs, and it is brilliant.

I don't think the young are any better. They just have different snacks and are more likely to keep looking at their phones (the light from the screen is so distracting).

I sat behind a couple at the Live Aid musical a few weeks ago and they really should have got a room. Chatting and kissing and leaning heads on shoulders. Plenty of fizz drunk throughout the show (they had a bottle, presumably from the theatre bar) not taking very much notice of the show at all. Totally ruined it for me as it was distracting and annoying. I was murderous by the end.

Exactly this! I've been to so many performances where people in the audience have got absolutely hammered - pre drinks, drinks during, interval drinks and then drinks taken in post interval - they've no idea how loud and disruptive they are being. And phones - I went to see a play and a woman at the front filmed it on her phone - no one did anything and all I could see out of corner of my eye was her phone waving around. All of this is so much worse since lockdown too - people seem to have forgotten how to behave in public.

there are always a few of these in any vaguely intellectual production - Shakespeare in particular - who feel the need to Laugh Very Loudly to make all around aware that They Understand the Joke, even though if it had been in current vernacular it's the type of witty wordplay that warrants a quick smile/snigger of appreciation (country matters, etc.) rather than belly aching hysteria.

A huge amount of the problems people have mentioned seem to come from people who don't want to be there - man watching football, people drinking heavily to enjoy themselves, small children at shows that are inappropriate for them, etc. What I don't understand is why people spend money on going if that's the case! It's not as though theatre is cheap, and we're supposedly in a cost of living crisis - who has £80 to drop on tickets to then play on your phone/spend another £40 on drinks meaning you don't remember seeing the show?

I can't imagine theatres will stop selling food/drinks any time soon though - that's usually where they make most of their money. Controversial but perhaps we should be thanking the pissheads and munchers for subsidising our ticket prices!

They need to tell them to leave. Publicly humiliate if possible. Also ideally there should be food-free seatings or sections. The last performance I went to was ruined by the adults behind who each had a share size packet of crisps and sweets and a giant fizzy drink. The noise was ghastly. So uncouth. Behave like toddlers, get treated like toddlers.

I turn around and Shush actively & directly, or tell them sternly to be quiet. Yes, I hate adding to the disruption, but such rude people need to be told firmly.

You need to use a ticket discount site ...

Ha, I have found my people! Until recently I thought the Royal Opera House was the last bastion of good manners, but sadly last week the (young - deffo not middle-aged) woman next to me began filming the show. I gave her a few minutes, and when it was clear she wasn't going to stop, I whispered (very politely) 'your phone light is really distracting'. 'Oh, is it?' she said, genuinely surprised.

Terribile behaviour OP. I hope you enjoyed the performance despite her selfish shenanigans.

recently had to put up with a woman who sat next to me at the theatre (a man for all seasons). She talked, fidgeted and even sat with her feet on the back of the (occupied) seat in front of her!
Then she fell asleep and snored, only waking up at the applause.

She obviously wasn’t that interested-so why go and spoil it for everyone else? 😩

Absolutely agree, I have noticed this and its happening ever more regularly. People arriving late, so all the row has to stand up, lots of views being blocked behind. There are even warnings that if you arrive late you will have to wait to be admitted at the interval but it seems no-one puts this into force. People coming back from interval late ( same goes?!) But they are often sloshing glasses of wine with them, and clearly more than tipsy, it shows in their loud voices and "slower to rise but longer and louder to laughs". Once at Les Mis, £180 tickets again, its really not cheap and definitely a rarer treat, the staff came to warn our section that the cast could hear someone in the audience singing along!! WTA? Luckily we hadnt hears them...but not even West End shows alone, bad manners are seen within more local productions too. A particular peeve of mine is at tge interval, usually 15 mins, and never enough ladies loos. So the people next to you and on your row refuse to let you get past to get out and join the queue, they literally look at you like your mad, and maybe then twist their knees to one side slightly and of course there just isn't the room to scrape past. So you say excuse me again from your standing position, and then they tut and stand and make you almost trip over their feet. When you come back, they have always gone from their seats probably to do the same!! I have had a coat and bag from someone on MY seat, and tuts when I have to ask who's they are, so I can sit down. Crisps and wrappered sweets, talking loudly al the way through....just what is wrong with some people? My daughter recently was trying to come out of a loo cubicle to wash hands, and one particular lady (waiting for loo!!)just blocked her and despite several excuse me's from my dd, glared at her and refused to move! My dd is 22, I had to ask the lady myself could she get out, so someone else could exit the queue and use the toilet, madness! It rather spoils the experience, we find ourselves discussing bad mannered people as much as the performance (afterwards!!)

And filming or photography are explicitly forbidden at the ROH - and any other decent theatre.

I witnessed quite stringent treatment of phones at Cabaret on Broadway a few months ago. We were given special stickers & were required to cover our camera phone lenses. As I left, the FoH staff were surrounding a man who was the photos he'd tried to take. Friends of mine who are performer absolutely hate being filmed/photographed while on stage. They are so generous off-stage in chatting to fans and posing for selfies with them - but some people are just pigs sometimes, and exploit anything.

Some Theatre and cinema goers behave like they’re in there own front room ..
ive had many viewings at cinema wrecked by loud popcorn / sweets / nacho chompers … always when it’s quiet .. or a poignant moment .. totally ruins the moment .. During Wicked it happened through the whole film .. so started bouncing my foot up and down to annoy the woman who was doing it and she looked .. I think she got the message it was distracting her 😂 but totally tainted my enjoyment.. and theatre goers well .. usually had a drink and start getting rowdy .. At an Elvis tribute two women had a row screaming match and weren’t even sitting next to eachother 😂 … Never experienced it before in my life before or since I could go on as I’ve been to loads in my 62 young years lol .. utterly infuriating selfish and weird

Cinema etiquette as well seems to have disappeared. I’m like ‘ffs, could you not just have eaten before you came?’ Phones were switched off last week when I went to see ‘I swear’ but watches weren’t and they flashed every few seconds with notifications. It was really distracting