Appalling behaviour and verbal assault in a theatre

[Fran2023]

We were at an internationally renowned theatre in Warwickshire over the weekend where we experienced the following:

The patron sitting one seat away from me, was talking to his companion and in a loud voice started talking about a person he referred to as a ‘Jew boy’ and described how his feet were so small. He then wondered, out loud whether ‘they bind their feet like the Japanese.’ (Sic) He also pointed at people standing and said in a loud voice, ‘Look at them in the cheap seats.’ During the performance of the play, he started talking several times, so I asked him to ‘please stop talking as he was at the theatre not the bar.’ He stopped talking until the interval, although during the performance he kept pushing his left hand between the legs of his female companion, stroking up and down and otherwise groping her. (This was a couple in their 50s or 60s!)

During the interval, after my husband had left to collect our drinks, the man verbally attacked me. He and his companion continued to berate me and argue for several minutes because I had asked him to be quiet during the performance. He then said that they (he and his companion) had had to listen to me laughing like ‘ a stupid horse-woman’ and then they both started making braying noises while pointing at me.

i immediately picked up my coat and bag and left to find an usher. I told the usher who called the duty manager. I explained everything, by then I was in floods of tears. Her solution was to offer us different seats or tickets for another performance, which we accepted.

My AIBU is that the couple who attacked me remained in their seats and nothing was done about them, surely they should have been asked to leave? The theatre’s argument was that there were no independent witnesses! I was left feeling that I was the problem as it was me who left!

Sorry you had to go through this.

However I have voted YABU as what were the staff meant to do? They only have your side of the story and I doubt they have any powers to remove disruptive patrons without ruining the second half of the performance for all.

I had a similar experience at the Theatre Royal in Bath, My son was sitting beside an older woman who hit him and then was abusive to me when I raised it with her in the interval. The theatre were brilliant and moved us to some great seats (even though it was sold out) and checked in with us afterwards to make sure we were ok. It was very upsetting for my son though.

and then all the enablers would have tried shaming him, telling him "he was out of order for hitting an old man"

The game of FAFO is suitable for all ages

That's what I thought.
Someone else who doesn't know how to behave in public (although I think we laydeez are supposed to swoon at the thought of a big, brave man defending us with his fists).

OP, had I been there, I'd have been the one telling this obnoxious-sounding duo of dicks to shut the fuck up long before you. I'd also have hoped a few of my fellow, non-dickish, theatre patrons would have stepped in and urged the theatre to have bounced the pair of them out for the second half.

It mystifies me what some groups of people are prepared to put up with though; I was in the cinema a couple of weeks ago and the alarm on the mobile of a woman sitting behind me was going off. I let it go for a few moments - as you would whilst waiting for the owner to find their mobile in the depths of their bag and turn it off..... but, no, this woman fumbled around for a couple of seconds under her seat, then just left the alarm going off....

Eventually, after maybe forty seconds or so, I turned around and asked; 'Whose phone is that'? And she replied; 'It's my alarm. I can't find my phone' - clearly not intending to make any effort at all to get up out of her seat and leave the auditorium to find said phone so as not to disrupt the entire remainder of the film.

I glared at her for a second before she said; 'I'll try and find it again', and I just said; 'I think you're going to have to'. It took her all of five seconds to grab her bag from under her seat and switch the phone off. Amazing. Truly incredible that she appeared to be quite ready to sit there with her phone alarm going off and not do anything about it. Incredible, also, that her friend, sitting right next to her, didn't say anything at all!

People can be SO weird.

The DH had gone to the bar anyway I think.

That’s why the man chose that time to have a go at the OP, because she was then a woman on her own.

But no one should be “decking” anyone, as the previous poster suggested, any way I agree!

It might not have calmed things down but it would have sent a clear message and that message would be:

The Time When Twats Think They Can Get Away With Things While The Rest of Us-like the poor cat in the adage-Dare Not Do Anything Is Coming To An End.

I don't understand why other people sitting nearby didn't step in and back up the OP. I bloody would have!

well, if people are big and brave enough to racially abuse people in public, they need to be able to suffer the consequences in front an audience

rather than writing fraudulent cheques with their mouths that their temporary drug and alcohol fuelled beliefs can't cash

As the OP said she was at The Swan, over the weekend, the play would have been either Part 1 or Part 2 of Middlemarch. (Game of Thrones finished in September, and I think that was in the main house, not The Swan). I don't recall the novel being that hilarious. But maybe the scriptwriter had some fun with it. One review suggests that she did.

I often go to the theatre in Sheffield and Barnsley and have never seen this kind of behaviour.

Although, I suppose the lovely little Lamproom isn't going to be on most people's bucket lists.

Mike Tyson — 'Social media made y'all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it.'

People "don't want to get involved".

That’s what I was thinking - I definitely would have!

I go to the Theatre a lot - less so now I'm not living in London but still average a trip a month. I've had some awful experiences - worst was about 10 years ago, Miss Saigon, a very significant scene where she's singing her plight with full emotion, and the guy 5 seats along got his phone out to check the time. And a minute later (she's still bawling up on stage) he got his phone out and scrolled through facebook. This was about 6 rows from the front of the stage, right in the middle, lighting up his face. Interval I stepped over and said "I don't know if you realise your phone use was very distracting". Polite, calm. He was with his wife and teenage son, the son had been literally been talking to him about the phone use as I walked over - Mr Man said "I was just checking the time", all indignant. I said "well, and then you checked through Facebook". He went off on one "OMG it was just for a minute" etc ... I was supremely polite, said I just wanted to let you know I could see it from my seat". Walked back to my seat. The three of them followed me, heading to the bar. As I turned to let them past he shoo-d me with his hands, shouting - "keep going, keep going". I said, "this is my seat". The huffing and puffing off him, and the wife did a "ooooOOOoooo, hark at YOU" to me. Grown adults.

I'm really selective now about what I see, can't waste my money on tickets and £££ train travel to risk a disappointing trip.

"Decking" someone sounds all very big and bold, but it's not like in the films where Our Hero lands one clean blow and the culprit slopes off having Learned His Lesson and Everyone Claps.
It sounds like this was a smallish space and an attempt at scrapping would have ended up in an undignified mess, probably with other people getting hurt and the would-be "decker" possibly getting arrested.
It's a childish reaction.

Have to admit, that exchange sounds more distracting than the checking of Facebook.

"We reserve the right to refuse admission in reasonable circumstances or to request any ticket holder to leave the theatre and take appropriate action to enforce this right."

RSC Terms and conditions of buying a ticket. Many theatres now have this. Most need to enforce it more often. As I said, when I was a theatre manager if this had come to me during an interval, that man would have been asked to leave.

I understand why you feel it is the other couple who should have been moved, but think about it - had the usher asked them to move, given their already appalling behaviour they may have made a fuss and the whole episode would then have escalated. The way the usher handled it was the route causing least disruption .

Yes (derail), often see these threads where posters talk about how they would have done this, that or the other, suggesting they turn to violence at the drop of a hat. The reality is they don't, and if they do, they are most likely in a heap of trouble. Watching too much Reacher and Bosch, I'm afraid.

And the actual reality of thumping someone who says something you don't like reults in a Will Smith scenario...

Thats awful, sorry OP. I agree the theatre couldn’t anything but that’s appalling behaviour.

The fact that you've never heard of something doesn't mean it's not internationally renowned.

Odd thing to be proud of, really.

isn't it?

I'm not sure you've been in many martial arts / boxing gyms and then seen what happens when muppets cross paths of a trained person

these things are over in 10 seconds, though I can't comment if that's from personal epxerience

The last time we were at the ROH an usher who used a wheelchair was verbally abused and spat at by a man. DH intervened and we got more staff and they did NOTHING it was horrifying. The thug grinned and smirked at the usher the whole of the second half. When I complained AGAIN I was offered a refund and they rolled their eyes at me.
Its bizarre how the media are so quick to shame an daft middle aged woman who gets lairy on prosecco and has a sing along whilst violent angry men do whatever the fuck they please isn't it?