Bad Behaviour at a Show

Well I had previously met him and his husband socially and got on fine with them. Some months ago I called him out for taking content from here and posting it on Twitter without attribution, and he threw a hissy fit, slagging off the board and me personally, blocking me on Twitter. I never quite understood why, if, as he said, this board was regarded as "one of the biggest jokes in London theatre", he bothered to read it and steal content from it. Oh well.

He sounds like a right little oik based in the reporting of his Facebook comments. What a twit.

This made me smile :-

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12328555/Pictured-scary-man-GIMP-suit-roamed-Shakespeares-Globe-matinee-attended-children-venue-thought-not-offensive-let-young-son-daughter-sit-him.html

I can see the funny side reading about it, maybe if the person had sat next to me I may have been surprised. If it was in standing area then you could have moved away if you had wanted to. But they are in the outfit and if that is their kink then I feel that is acceptable.

Given it was fairly warm, I'd be worried he'd faint and i'd pity the poor person having to remove the outfit!

If someone's sexual fetish involves wearing a latex suit in public places, it's not just 'wear what you like', it's involving others in his fetish without their consent, including children, who cannot consent. Fine if it was 2am or an adults only venue, but I'd have felt uncomfortable if I'd been sat next to him - also physically uncomfortable given how squashed up the seaating at the Globe is. I hope a few parents or teachers raise safeguarding concerns with the Globe as they make a big thing about how child-friendly they are.

Is it wrong that I'd rather sit next to a man in a gimp suit, than a man constantly checking his phone?

I had to look up what a gimp suit was, as I'm only familiar with the word as (presumably pejorative) slang for a lame person. But I don't see how wearing that suit is involving others in the person's fetish (unless it's revealing or anatomically enhanced or the person is visibly aroused). And presumably children wouldn't know it's sex-related unless someone tells them. To a kid, this could look a lot like a Batman costume, in fact.

If someone wears a studded dog collar in public because it turns them on, are onlookers complicit in their fetish?

I probably wouldn't initially be comfortable seated next to them but for other reasons. One, being squished thigh-to-thigh with vinyl or rubber or whatever would be physically sweaty and uncomfortable. (I'd have the same response to someone in pleather trousers.) For another, I wouldn't be sure what behavior to expect from them. They're clearly looking for attention and reaction (much like the punks still hanging around Camden Market), so I would be wary of how far they're willing to go. And people deliberately obscuring their faces (like wearing a balaclava into a bank) set off my big-city spidey senses.

But if they behaved themselves? And kept themselves to themselves? Weird, but whatever.

I think I'm immune to outrageous clothing at work, but maybe not so much in a legitimate theatre. Guess it depends on the context. Working in a music venue, we get all kinds depending on the musical genre of the evening. When it's a club/rave night, all bets are off. I have seen patrons come in wearing lycra bodysuits that completely cover every bit of skin including their entire faces. Not sure how they navigate once they're in the darkened dance area, but not my problem. We get men in dresses, including Lolita style dresses, for some of the acts that appeal to younger audiences - not to mention creepy older men who come on their own just to check out the fans. Funny thing is that the audience that seems to be most cooperative and least abusive to staff is the metal audience - even on screamo emo nights. You can have someone covered in leather, spiked dog collar and studded jackets, with wild hair that recalls King's Road punks, lots of tattoos, and they are the nicest people and so pleasant at the beginning of the evening because they're just happy to be there for their favourite music. Once the bands start along with the moshing, you'll see security running, wheelchairs, stretchers, because someone drank too much, got too aggro, got dropped while crowd surfing, but they knew what they were coming in to do. That's show business...

I have seen this word "creepy" used a lot lately, and it's often applied to people whose only crime seems to be that they still have a healthy sexual appetite but happen to be old, or perhaps young but seen as unattractive. Exactly the same flirtatious behaviour carried out by some young, good-looking person will, conversely, often be welcomed by the very same people.

Just an observation.

Bit late posting this one as it was from Thursday night, but I need to get it off my chest. Some stupid (presumably inebriated) wench sat either in the rear stalls or dress circle at Groundhog Day insisted on whooping at various points in the show. Now as anybody who has seen this show will know, it's often laugh-out-loud funny, reflective and moving, but above all is about pace and timing. This silly woman kept whooping at inappropriate moments, which not only punctured some key moments but also (I think) was offputting to the cast. The best example came in "Nobody Cares" where Gus says "You know in Punxatawny we've only got one word for snow?"... Ralph (played superbly by Nick Hayes) leaves a long pause whilst looking quizzical before saying "What is it?!". It's one of the funniest moments in the show, but this selfish whooping woman decided to make one of her involuntary yelps right in the silent point - you know, the bit where the audience anticipates what he might say next but wants to hear him say it anyway. Literally, the audience equivalent of pricking the laughter balloon with the biggest pin you can find. You could see the actor look out to the audience with a bit of a "wtf?" look in his eyes, but he didn't break character.

I genuinely believe such disruptive people should be given one warning and then kicked out (male or female, though in my experience over recent months it is usually prosecco-fuelled women). Why, oh why, do certain people feel the need to make it all about them? I once had somebody similar doing the same thing whilst sat next to me at Bat Out Of Hell, and no amount of glares or nudges was going to stop their behaviour.

Oikish feral 'look at me' types who insist on pulling focus need to be removed from the audience, and the audience for their part needs to do more to either bring it to the attention of theatre staff, or deal with it directly.

Rant over, normal service clearly resumed after a 'bad behaviour moratorium' earlier in the month.

I do agree with this - the shouting out ProseccHuns are a bit of a nightmare. 

I had four in front of me at Shirley Valentine who as soon as the lights went down and Sheridan started talking started shouting out "we can't hear ya; we can't hear ya!" All with goldfish bowls of wine. Thank God, for once security intervened. Then another couple kept shouting "chips and egg chips and egg" like some kind of Shirley Valentine Tourettes. 

Then at A Little Life I had a lady next to me who came back from the interval with a(nother) pint of white wine. When Willem said something like "I can live without sex" she shouted out "REALLY?!" Then 5 mins later Jude said something like "the best thing about being an adult is not having to have sex" and she shouted out "HEAR HEAR!" And I was like what-the-actual..... Continuing through the second half, every time Jude went to self harm she'd shout "NOOOOO - DON'T DO IT AWWWWW!"

And there was me, a usually musicals only person, thinking I could escape bad behaviour by seeing plays!

Being charitable these probably aren't bad people when sober - but honestly we are at the grim point where I almost wish they'd breathalyse people!

As ever ATG must take some of the blame (it's almost always their theatres) as they are desperate for everyone to be paralytic from the moment you set foot on their website.