Bad Behaviour at a Show

I'm a painfully self-conscious person who stopped wearing a digital watch to the theatre because it would light up, like sph I just have a pre-act 1 and interval drink (red wine and beer). I can't imagine having a loud wrapper I had to fiddle with during the action, I'd probably give myself a panic attack!

The only thing I sometimes 'eat' is a throat lozenge, as the air-conditioning makes me cough.

True hadn't thought of that, is very much the thing i do of an evening when I eat.

In the front row of & Juliet last night this woman must have spent the majority of the first act 1 on her phone even when the performers were just a meter away.

I did flag to an usher at the interval and one of the more senior front of house staff did speak to the front row but he had got the wrong side! At least they took action.

Not quite bad behaviour but another woman in the same group honestly must have been starring at the song list in the programme for most of the act 1. Very odd.

It's really not surprising. Even at the lower end of the bad behaviour scale it's amazing how many people whip their phones out to check them/send texts etc without even a second thought - equally worrying is how argumentative they are when confronted by ushers. People don't like being told off. Personally I think it does good if members of the public are told "NO" every now and then. The customer is not always right.

Abba Voyage yesterday. The couple next to me decided to talk all the way through the entire show. Not just quiet whispers, but full on conversation, laughing , pointing then getting louder as the music got louder. Not entirely sure of the protocol here, is it theatre? Is it a concert? The Only time there was no conversation was when one of them went off to get more alcohol. The music got a lot louder a few songs in and I was so taken in by the show that eventually I was able to zone out but I can’t help but think that a night at the bar would have suited them better.

Joseph tour Liverpool on Saturday night, loads of people attempting to sing along at various points but thankfully not too bad until it came to the reprise of ADWD, at which point it became a free for all with most of the audience attempting to join in and most of them pretty badly.
Also one of my pet hates at Anything Goes last week, talking over the overture and entr'acte. The babble from the audience got louder as the orchestra did to the point where it almost drowned the orchestra out.

At BTTF recently the people behind me continued to talk after the overture had finished, and also during Marty’s first lines. Just full on continued their conversation, didn’t even take a breath.

We went to Magical Classical presents Meat Loaf in Coventry over the weekend. Audience was generally fine (considering it was a gig, you have to let a lot go) until the singer announced that the orchestra was going to do an instrumental version of "Heaven Can Wait".

My god, you would have thought what he said was "talk amongst yourselves while the orchestra, the people you have notionally paid to witness during a cost of living crisis, provide some background music"!

Reporting myself for a near miss. Just into the second half of a play I suddenly remembered my work phone was in my bag..switched on. There's no reason it should ring at 9pm but I spent the next 40 minutes suppressing the urge to search through my bag to turn it off. And praying no one dialled the number by mistake.

I suppose it's all about the vibe put out by the theatre. The Lion King is great for kids, but it's not a 'kids' show' and it's something that is designed to be properly enjoyed by adults and older children, not endured to keep the kiddies occupied for a couple of hours. That should be made clear.

I remember taking my niece to the live Peppa Pig theatre show, and they were selling the flashy, twirly things in the theatre with the explicit expectation that kiddies would be waiving them around during the show, which most of them did. I remember thinking about how there was none of this fun stuff when I was little.

I'd like to think most parents would understand that a show like the Lion King requires different behaviour than Peppa Pig or the Christmas panto, but I can understand why some parents might not have twigged.

I'm not sure how theatres can get the message across without sounding patronising, but I'd have no objections to hearing a "this isn't the panto - behave!" announcement. They could draw attention to the age recommendations. According to the website the Lion King is for children 6+ with no children under three allowed.

Mainly I'm surprised that people will pay for expensive tickets for children too young to appreciate it, that will invariably need the kind of attention that means you won't appreciate the show either.