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.

I agree and wish that people were ejected more often. .. from the cinema too. I’ve never understood why people need huge drinks and massive snacks during a (generally 2 hour max) film. Tho I do remember several years ago taking kids to the cinema with a friend and we agreed I’d pay for the tickets and she’d pay for the kids snacks; her bill was much bigger than mine.

Good for you

People are just so ignorant. And greedy! The gobbling of hordes of junk is disgusting. Had a family with a large group of girls (party I suppose) sitting behind me at Lion, Witch and Wardrobe recently. There wasn't a single moment of silence for the entire first half, I've never heard such constant and very loud rustling and eating. Second half was less rustling, more chatting. Parents did exactly nothing. My children know better than to make any noise during the performance. They can eat a treat at the interval. There is simply no need to stuff their faces throughout a performance. I have second hand embarrassment at the greed on display at theatres these days. Once had a couple with a toddler at an evening performance of Swan Lake. The toddler started a kind of moan/whine/cry about 15 mins in and that went on for the entire first act, at which point they left. Felt sorry for the child as it was late and they were obviously tired. But also felt sorry for all of us who had paid a lot of money for ballet tickets. As for indiscriminate phone use, I despair. Swan Lake at the Royal Albert Hall not so long ago, the ushers were up and down the aisles like yo yos telling people to switch off, it was non stop. So distracting.

Mostly very well behaved audience but i do remember a man who tapped along to all the music in Swan Lake on the railing. It seemed like a showing off thing, to show he knew the music. Very irritating!

Oh but it is hard if you know the music. I really have to control myself at some ballets where I've learned the rep/choreography at some point. And stop myself from tapping fingers or feet in time to the music. I do try not to do this as I know how irritating it is. And I do have to stop myself from counting the 32 fouettés in the Odile solo in Swan Lake ...

It's hard with music or choreography you know. But necessary to control oneself, I know.

I disagree with a PP who said filming or watching a rock concert via your phone is OK> I really hate it when I'm in the front standing area watching a band and all the (tall) men are holding their phones up. I want to see the band, LIVE. People have forgotten about just experiencing the moment.

I tend to stick to the National Theatre.
All their tickets are under £100 and many far less.
I sat next to a couple who were talking/ filming etc a few months back.
I complained in the interval. They said they’d already had a few complaints. They would be monitoring the couple and intervene if it happened again.
it did and a woman wearing headphones came down and told them in no uncertain tones to switch their phones off.
They did.

I sat next to a couple who were talking/ filming etc a few months back.

You see, if someone sitting next to me is talking, then I tell them to be quiet straightaway. I am firm about it, and I'm probably not very polite. But then I'm not the one being impolite in the first place.

I've been going to the theatre since I was about 7; it's actually part of my job, and I won't put up with such rudeness.

Cinemas are struggling as it is. They need to make money and selling drinks/snacks is the main way after ticket sells.
Someone on my FB went to the flicks recently ad said a bag of Maltesers and a fizzy drink cost them £11!

Even in dc school productions parents are disruptive- when my eldest was young a crying baby would be shushed or taken to the back but now the parents sit chatting away and ignoring running toddlers - feel sorry for all the children that have tried so hard to learn their lines.
on another note I had a friend that chatted all through a theatre performance ignoring my shushes and the fact that I refused to answer her - didn’t go with her again

When I took my 10 year old to see Wicked, there was a woman in the row behind me who was constantly loudly narrating the show to her own child (probably about five and obviously did not understand what was happening), rustling sweets and using her phone - she had probably disturbed everyone around her twenty times in the first ten minutes of the show. I asked her politely to be quieter several times. The front of house staff took matters into their own hands before I had to speak to them and they came and told her that she would need to leave if she couldn't guarantee to remain quiet. No further problems. I thanked them at the interval. That's what should happen. FOH should be looking out for problems and solving them before they turn into something bigger. That's literally part of their job.

Yanbu. People were removed from a musical i was at this year .

I’ve noticed the decorum is lost!

Sorry, I agree with 99% of this thread but YABU. As pointed out to you, it's Everyman's USP, they make burgers and other foods available for order and consumption during the film and nobody who goes there should have to moderate their food choices in case someone else doesn't like the smell etc. I note you've said you don't go there anymore and that's probably a very good decision on your part because the problem in this case is very decidedly you.

We had this at a Christmas service. Children about three or four (so old enough to know what sit still means) dressed in angel wings thundering up and down the aisle of the church. As one of them came back up towards their parents, I saw the parent move in their seat and thought they were at least going to get them under control. But, no: they were getting their phone out of their back pocket to video the little mite as it rampaged about the church, smiling expectantly at everyone as if expecting adoring smiles at their antics like their grinning parent with their phone trained on them.

The worst thing about theatres these days are the people taking selfies - tossing their hair into position and writhing and arching their back in their seat in front of you to get their sexiest look. It's bad enough when they take it looking backwards, but I had one woman twist right round in her seat to get the performance in the background.

I gave her the filthiest look I could manage to convey in the dark, but wish I'd had the gumption to ask her at interval if she would be posting to her instagram with the caption: "Here I am being Culchured at the Theatre and ruining it for those round me who paid a fortune for their tickets and actually wanted to watch."

By asking her to either pipe down or leave. It’s really not impossible. I’m a theatre steward.

I'm always astounded by the fact that people don't know how to behave at the theatre.

We're just home from NYC and on Thursday night we went to see Beetlejuice on Broadway (highly recommended, it's coming to the West End soon).

There was a woman in front who had an empty seat next to her. She kept swapping seats 😡 pick one and sit in it!!! When the music came on she put her hands in the air like she didn't care. One is not at a concert! 😡 I swear, I nearly clobbered her with my playbill.

DD and I went to see Heathers a couple of years ago and the people next to us came in late TWICE. Once at the beginning and after the interval, meaning we had to stand to let them in.

I've been at a pantomime years ago where the people in front had a baby and let it cry for the whole first half. What is wrong with people?

I see a lot of live comedy, the odd tv comedian but more lesser well known touring comedians, in venues of all sizes (but never arenas) and there has never been a problem. The odd person taking a subtle photo, but no general phone problems at all and the audiences are really well behaved. In fact one, Tommy Tiernan, provided pouches to lock phones away and it was brilliant! Maybe folk are too scared of being picked on in a live comedy setting to disturb others, and really want to be there.

Definitely music and musicals where people get annoying. Saw my fav band a few months ago, got on the barrier in an Academy venue and during a slower song a woman I’d been talking to before the show, kept trying to ask me what I thought of the band and show now, given one of them had recently left! Gah!

Musicals: My sister told someone at Phantom of the Opera in the West End to put her phone away, which she did. At Hamilton in Manchester the family in front had a child of about 5 with them, who was obviously bored. She was going from one person to the other and crawling all over them. The dad nearly, but didn’t, take her home in the interval. Just not the right show for such a young child surely.

At a West End singers solo gig the woman next to us was drinking. She kept her mini bottle of the wine and her glass on the floor. Every minute she leaned down to fill her glass, then again to pick it up, then again drink from it, put it down again and repeat. Drove us mad.

I saw a comedian (not a hugely well known one but has been on TV - Nabil Abdulrashid) and a pair of women were thrown out. They complained he was too loud and "ruining their socials" (they should not have been filming to start with.. they did get a warning). Then they heckled a couple of times. Comedian made a pointing gesture and told them to fuck off. They were escorted out, and the audience cheered.
Waste of the comedian's time, the audience's time, and ultimately their own money.

I just don't go to big West End performances any more because I don't see the point in spending so much money just for the experience to be ruined by selfish gits who don't know how to behave. Fortunately, the behaviour in my local theatres seems to be so much better (so far!), so we generally wait for musicals etc. to be shown there on tour. But the best (and most well-behaved!) performance I've seen this year was The Glass Menagerie at a tiny theatre in East London, which so enraptured the audience that they all leaned forward as one - literally on the edge of their seats - at the most crucial points in the story. That's how the experience should be - with the audience totally immersed!

i Went to see the band Ghost earlier this year. The band has always been very vocal about phones at concerts and how people should live in the moment to the extent that this time it was a device free gig.

phones were sealed in pouches and honestly it was bloody amazing. To be able to stand and watch a concert without looking through phone screens and interact with the band made such a difference. I’d love to see more artists, and theatres use the technology.

People tend to have short attention spans, and be phone addicted now (I don't think people in the 80s/90s when I was a kid would have believed how we'd constantly be on social media), plus most people aren't as used to sitting still in schools as they used to be. One of the grans who helped at our primary says she's surprised how much moving around they do and how little time they spend sitting still, compared to her day. Not saying that's a good or a bad thing, just how it is, at least at my kids' state schools. And people used to go the cinema a lot, now most people chat or scroll when they watch Netflix. If someone steps in to police behaviour these days, like if a kid is putting their feet on bus seats/misbehaving in a restaurant/someone talking in a cinema, there's likely to be at least an argument and sometimes a fight, maybe.

This is so true.

I used to have such great focus, and really struggled to take the breaks they suggest when working on something. However, one of the reasons I am on MN now is when I am working I have it open on another window and flick across every so often to change focus, and you can just dip quickly in and out (though I do sometimes get chastised for not RTFT! I just can't spend that much time!)

It's like I am training myself not to be able to concentrate; these days I like a bit of something else slotted in at intervals like a mental amuse-bouche between courses.

Several years ago we went to see Bryan Ferry at the Albert Hall. We had literally just sat down when we got a message to say our daughter had been rushed to hospital with a suspected stroke - we had to get up and leave and race to the hospital. I wouldn't be able to go to a concert without access to my phone. Can you still access the phone in an emergency with the pouches?

There's always one who.thinks the rules dont apply to them.
Went to to the local theatre a few weeks ago.
They asked you not to take photos. I saw one woman doing it.
I try to always sit on the end if I can.

This will not be something everyone agrees with, but when I was young there was also a different attitude to going to the theatre, which I liked. It was considered a treat, or event and people actually got dressed up - "Sunday best" kind of dressed up. I remember as a child having my best clothes on.

Now you see people dressed in all sorts and I do feel that feeds a little into their behaviour: they have convinced themselves it's nothing special. I saw a child at a children's performance recently and they had torn leggings with mega bum-sag and a stained t-shirt - like mum had said "put on your playing in the garden clothes." I understand that people like an easy life, but I do think it also makes things feel less of an event.

Theatre Usher here...

Sometimes what you think is obvious and loud isn't, sometimes it's hard for us to pin down exactly who is making the noise. Please always talk to us in the interval and we will try and have a word.

People are also just rude. We have had to have security escort people out who have shouted and screamed all the way out, we have had people complain and cry to the managers that we have victimised them or picked on them or being rude to them because we've told them to stop talking/filming/singing

Then you get the people who can't understand that musicals (especially jukebox musicals) aren't concerts and, no, you can't song along and people aren't being miserable because they aren't joining in

We understand. We get it. We hate it too.