This is from a piece about disruption during a production of Macbeth -
‘Earlier this week, an audience member who refused to wait for a break to return to his seat disrupted a performance at the Harold Pinter Theatre on Panton Street.
The Doctor Who star, 53, was told to leave the stage for 15 minutes as the objector insisted on getting back to his row and “then lots of people kicked off”, witnesses said.’
The simple fact is we can’t afford to go to the theatre very often but love to see a performance in the West End. However, we have seen a deterioration of good theatre manners, with audience members arriving late and shuffling to their seats obscuring people’s view of the stage during the production, drunk members shouting out and clapping for no good reason, and of course people going on their phones. I saw a man in front of me playing some kind of game on his phone rather than watching the production.
I think this deterioration is to some extent due to theatre goes being allowed to take drinks from the bar into the theatre and even have drinks served to them in their seats. Certainly if someone can’t wait a couple of hours to go without a drink is something wrong. And such drinks are hardly a treat, served in nasty plastic cups.
Surely better to have proper drinks either before or after a production.
Rant over 🤔
