Bad Behaviour at a Show

The majority of replies to this are suggesting the child may have ADHD or Autism, and using the ipad to regulate; also the belief that no school would allow this without good reason - and an ipad is not like smuggling a phone and avoiding the supervising teachers' attention.  Interesting.  Edmondson getting stick for shaming a child/school.  

If their conjecture is correct, it's still worth a school notifying FOH, or preferably the theatre in advance, so actors are aware the glow from the dark auditorium is to be expected.

I think it's natural for a performer or audience member to become annoyed if there's something like this going on in the auditorium. Although my sympathy is more with audience nearby.

The issue with airing these things on twitter is that you are immediately attacked by the "OH BUT WHAT IF..." brigade who are determined to list a variety of very specific reasons that these things happen. "Oh but what if that woman singing along has a rare condition where she HAS to sing every five minutes OTHERWISE HER VOICE BOX WILL COLLAPSE AND SHE'LL DIIIEEEEE!!!" etc. I do find them tiresome.

and the rest of society didn't really need to get involved to become some sort of collective Devil's advocate.

As someone who is also autistic, I completely agree with this point. Relaxed performances, which are supposed to cater for autistic people, would be awful for me. What I want is for everyone in an audience to sit still & shut up!

I would LOVE a “sit still & shut up” performance! Don’t know why no one does that - suspect it would be quite popular (and not just with those of us with autism!)

You say that. but I actually did get told off once for laughing too much at a comedy!

Quick disclaimer: my mum's a northerner from Yorkshire so it's not northernist... but... ARGH!

We were surrounded at Back To The Future on Monday by the brashest, loudest, most coarse party of northern folk you could ever hope not to meet. Shouting across seats to each other, one particularly loud Karen giving a commentary behind me, a Sharon next to me chirping like a canary and 'talking' to the stage in some kind of basic call and response activity (though the stage never actually called), and a slightly embarrassed Darren two rows in front, desperately trying to disown the party he was with.

They stank of cheap wine (smuggled in somehow and covertly poured from a bag), two day old cigarettes (or maybe their pockets were the ashtray) and sickly sweet perfume.

It's about time theatre staff sorted these rabble-rousers out. Their gung-ho alcohol induced bravado, heckling actors, and generally being a nuisance really spoilt things for anybody unfortunate enough to sit near them. I think most people (myself included) are nervous when people have had SO much to drink, as you know their judgement will already be skewed and intervention could see a glass in one's face.

Such people need to either be priced out or kicked out. I hope they were all violently ill on the coach back up the M1.