"Manners maketh man." Do you know what that means? Then let me teach you a lesson.

[Howdidtheydothat]

Went to a comedy night tonight, big stage, big audience. Two youngish girls (early 20s) yabbered to each other most of the way through the evening. One person nearby asked them to please be quiet (zero effect). When it finished I calmly explained them that btw, the whole circle of people that were sat around them struggled to hear the acts and were distracted by their loud conversations. The Girls protested that I had fact ruined their evening,
and actually , 1. They were talking to each other about the show and 2.nobody complained apart from me.
That, I advised was because “people are generally too polite and avoid confrontation but the whole circle of people around them were visibility annoyed.. I am not so British and as a human and parent to the next gen, I will at least try and help younger people ( my children or not) recognise when they are behaving like dicks and ruining something for many other people. I hope that people would do the same for my DC, before they cross the wrong person 😬. These young women honestly thought it was ok and were much like my 13 year old child in their response. When do people mature in the UK? . Ffs, what if everyone in the audience did the same . Manners maketh the man (or woman). I really hope that they took even a small snippet of my comments on aboard.

Someone should have grabbed a member of staff to deal with them.

Exactly. There are people there who are meant to deal with this. Taking it upon yourself to school them just makes you look (to them) a bit strange I should think. And these things have a habit of escalating when the generally public decide to sort things out themselves.

Someone who talks about manners would look strange to ignorant fuck wits who think it is ok to talk through someone’s performance. But who cares if fuck wits think we are strange.

We are all responsible for the world we live in and should speak out about unacceptable behaviour. Very few escalate when called out and if more people did stand up to bad manners and added their voices when entitled fuck wits protest their right to be I’ll mannered they would soon back down.

Grabbing someone who is probably on low pay to deal with it bothers me for two reasons

1. it is childlike, running to teacher/mummy when we can use our own polite adult words
2. It has, to me, the elitist over tones of getting the staff to do our dirty work

I agree with and appreciate everything you've said here – and...

As someone who has (many times) been that 'staff' on low pay, I'd much prefer people came and got me, with my venue shirt on and the perceived authority that gives me, plus the backup of venue policies to lean on, and plenty of experience handling situations like this in a tactful and friendly way.

That way I can cut something off at the source, often much more smoothly – rather than have to deal with the escalation that quite often results from another customer trying to handle it themselves.

Because once it escalates, it will be me who has to handle it, and it's much harder and less pleasant.

Low pay or not, it was a part of my job, it doesn't have to be 'dirty work' – in fact it's quite skilful to be able to manage spicy situations in an elegant way, and I'm better at it than most of the general public.

None of this is to say I'm not 100% with you on the sentiment behind what you've said – I am! I wish we all were more able to self-manage as a society with mutual respect. Just a different angle on the matter, perhaps.

When do people mature in the UK?

Weird question, OP. Do you think this is some kind of uniquely British affliction?

Thanks for speaking to them. I work in higher education and it is shocking how many people think it’s okay to have conversations during event (lectures etc).

I blame lockdown and lack of socialization. However, if I remember correctly, I was a pain at that age. 😬

So in a room full of people. 2 were rude and you've decided to judge the maturation age of the whole of the UK by that?
Go check yourself

I was ranting to DH about this the other day. I went to DC's primary school for their end of year performance, and some of the parents (and grandparents!) in the audience never bloody shut up! I had a complete running commentary going on behind me the while way through.
"Ah is that Jason's lad on the back row?"
"Ooooh I love this song!"
"Aw look at him in the little dinosaur costume, doesn't he look sweet?"
"Blimey, she's got a good voice on her, hasn't she?"

Yes she has, so stfu and let me hear it, for Pete's sake!

The kids on stage were far better behaved than many of the adults in the audience!

Sorry that your pair of muppets ruined the evening for you, OP. You were braver than I was in saying something (though my situation was complicated by the fact that I knew most of the people wittering on!).