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Post by lynette on Oct 19, 2018 17:49:00 GMT
I promised I'd record it here in the annals of bad behaviour and I shall: at The Wild Duck some of the cast mill around on stage during the interval setting up furniture, in character etc. A woman got out of her second row seat, walked across the stage, over the set, to the girl with her cast list in hand, and spoke to the young actor. Let us not forget, it was the interval, but they were definitely in the process of acting, that was very clear. I'm not completely certain what she said, but I have an inkling the woman was asking which of the two performers that share the role this particular small girl was. The girl looked fairly shellshocked and Lindsay Marshall who was on the other side of the stage (also acting, let's note) immediately walked over like an instinctual mother hen. The woman quickly scarpered off back to her seat, where oddly an usher didn't tell her off. Too busy selling ice creams I suppose. My second 'whaaa?' Of the night. On the stage!!! OMG
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Post by perfectspy on Oct 19, 2018 21:14:08 GMT
I was at Jermyn St Theatre a few weeks back to see Parents Evening. Whilst attempting to get to my seat on the tight aisle, a young woman sitting down allowed me to pass but made sure her backpack stayed in my way. In Monty Python fashion, I comically climbed over it. I think she got the point. I wanted to say something but being an intimate theatre, I didn’t want to make a fuss and maybe she just didn’t realise to move it.
A case of bad behaviour that backfired on me. At Menier, Pack of Lies play, someone on the end seat was what I thought looking at their phone. Twice I looked at them but was too many seats away. Then I noticed they were making notes, perhaps a critic. It was only at the interval that I discovered that he was in fact the Director.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2018 10:37:14 GMT
I was at the Crucible last week, and a young couple on the front row put their drinks and phones on the edge of the stage, lay right back in their seats and put their feet up on the low railing round the stage edge.
The women behind me chatting and passed sweets during the play, rustling around in handbags and making loads of noise. Then one of their phones started ringing and it took her ages to get it out of her bag and turn it off, all whilst going "oooh, I thought I'd turned it off!"
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2018 19:07:17 GMT
Erm, is it normal in Bristol for babies to be in the theatre? Because there are are two in the Old Vic whinging incessantly and no one apart from me seems to be tutting.
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Post by richey on Oct 20, 2018 22:53:41 GMT
Couple of minor annoyances at Hope Mill tonight during The Pride. One poor lady had a coughing fit halfway through act 1 and made it worse by trying to suppress it (it was very warm in there as usual). Mobile phone could be heard vibrating and two people couldn't wait for the interval to get up and go to the loo which causes quite a distraction in such a small venue. Plus the weird behaviour of the bloke next to me who had to keep clutching his female companions hand in an obvious bid to assert his heterosexuality.
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Post by hannechalk on Oct 22, 2018 14:03:25 GMT
Erm, is it normal in Bristol for babies to be in the theatre? Because there are are two in the Old Vic whinging incessantly and no one apart from me seems to be tutting. The only big baby in theatres in Bristol I know is fellow board member Ruby.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2018 14:28:21 GMT
Erm, is it normal in Bristol for babies to be in the theatre? Because there are are two in the Old Vic whinging incessantly and no one apart from me seems to be tutting. The only big baby in theatres in Bristol I know is fellow board member Ruby. They literally never stopped grizzling throughout; at one point, one of the parents stood up at the back, like that made the noise any less, especially in the studio which is tiny. Towards the end, there was a line in the piece about hating babies and I nearly started clapping. No idea what the ushers thought they were doing...
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2018 17:21:47 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2018 17:49:46 GMT
I'll drink to that. And one for Mahler.
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Xanderl
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Not always very high value in terms of ticket yield or donations
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Post by Xanderl on Oct 23, 2018 7:46:46 GMT
Erm, is it normal in Bristol for babies to be in the theatre? Because there are are two in the Old Vic whinging incessantly and no one apart from me seems to be tutting. I would contact the theatre to question their policy. Had a similar experience at the Royal Opera House (!) where a baby was in one of the boxes - a few people tweeted about this (including me) and the Royal Opera's director of opera responded confirming this was against their policy and (presumably) fed this back to the front of house team. Also got a refund from a cinema where a fairly noisy toddler was in a screening of a 15 certificate film (and in that case, the staff knew full well the child was in their as they helped the mother carry the pushchair downstairs after the screening!)
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Post by cartoonman on Oct 23, 2018 9:52:47 GMT
I took my 95 year old father to the Redbridge Drama Centre to see Formby. Dad's in a wheelchair and got in free and I got a discounted ticket. We had a reserved parking space right by the entrance and after the audience were seated we were guided in to a space for him in front of the seats with a chair for me at the side. The show started and was good. After about 30 mins Dad starts saying, in stage whispers, he doesn't think much of the show, and then that he has bad wind! I took him out at forty minutes. The staff guided us out and said why not come back in the evening to see the rest of the show. I COULD HAVE HIT HIM! I e-mailed the Drama Centre to apologise for leaving early and thanking them for their help. The show, what I saw of it, was very well done.
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Post by ruby on Oct 23, 2018 11:41:11 GMT
Erm, is it normal in Bristol for babies to be in the theatre? Because there are are two in the Old Vic whinging incessantly and no one apart from me seems to be tutting. The only big baby in theatres in Bristol I know is fellow board member Ruby. Selling hannechalk's cinema ticket for Funny Girl tomorrow to the highest bidder...
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2018 20:54:46 GMT
Matinee of Lord of the Flies today was (naturally) full of school children rustling sweet bags and nattering throughout the show.
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Post by asfound on Oct 23, 2018 22:29:06 GMT
Bunch of ageing, entitled, middle class twats in the middle of row C of Antony & Cleopatra tonight. Muttered and whispered throughout about how they know some bit part cast member. Young guy turned around and shushed them and one of them called him a ****. Charming.
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Post by MrsCondomine on Oct 24, 2018 10:56:15 GMT
Bunch of ageing, entitled, middle class twats in the middle of row C of Antony & Cleopatra tonight. Muttered and whispered throughout about how they know some bit part cast member. Young guy turned around and shushed them and one of them called him a ****. Charming. Ohhhhhh relatives of people on the stage always wind me up!! And it's never the star, is it? Always Roman Centurion Two or something.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2018 12:19:29 GMT
I've said it before and I'll say it again - if you want to see a play and you have a loved one in it, then go with grace. If you want to see a play *because* you have a loved one in it, do us all a favour and stay at home. It's hard to tell which is more irritating, your over-engagement when said loved one is on stage or your inevitably noisy under-engagement when they're not, but there's absolutely nothing stopping you sending them flowers and telling them how proud you are *instead* of you having to set foot in a building to watch a play that you never would have chosen to see otherwise.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2018 12:25:28 GMT
Matinee of Lord of the Flies today was (naturally) full of school children rustling sweet bags and nattering throughout the show. Related though they were impeccably behaved, the friend who went with me to Lord of the Flies last week found herself seated behind a row of little darlings she used to teach...temptation to throw sweets at THEM was strong I tell ya.
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Post by Backdrifter on Oct 24, 2018 12:26:25 GMT
^ Once again underlining my own consistent experience through the years that the most annoying people in theatres are routinely the middle-aged/elderly middle-class.
Last year I moved to Inverness and have been enjoying life in the Highlands. Everything feels so much less tightly-wound than in London and the people are generally so nice, the overall vibe very relaxed. With my work being mainly London-based I have to make occasional trips back there and have used those for cultural outings - not that I've been all that deprived here, having been to plenty of concerts, a few plays and lots of films at the Eden Court. They have a very good film programme and I'm looking forward to the Inverness Film Festival next month.
However, I can confirm that inconsiderate audience members can be found here too. Last night at The Macbeths at the Eden Court, a woman on the opposite side of the in-the-round seating kept her phone on all the way through the 70-minute show. After looking at it during the first minute or two, she then didn't actually do anything with it. She just kept it on her lap, but clearly still on. Most of the time it was face-down on her lap, but you could still see the light from the screen - in an intimate staging in mostly low light, just a couple of metres from the performers.
What is the point of this? I've seen others do this over the years, and never fathomed what the purpose is. I mean, I don't actually want them to be looking at it and using it, but if they did I'd understand that, infuriating as it would be. But to keep it face-down so it's JUST annoying enough, while not actually using it.... why??? It's as though they're somehow drawing strength from it, and that they'd wither and keel over if it was switched off.
At a Daniel Kitson show in a tiny club in Edinburgh 2 years ago, a woman on the front row was doing this, only with the phone face-UP on her lap so we got the full glare of it. DK said to her "What's going on with your phone?" to which she replied, "Nothing." "So why's it on your lap lighting up your chest like a heritage building at night?!"
Even that and the ensuing laughter didn't make her budge, so he asked her that if she must keep it switched on, could she put it in her bag, which she did.
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Post by asfound on Oct 24, 2018 14:15:30 GMT
^ Once again underlining my own consistent experience through the years that the most annoying people in theatres are routinely the middle-aged/elderly middle-class. Perhaps you're right. Due to what I suppose are my own prejudices I almost always breathe a sigh of relief when elderly, middle class types are sitting in my vicinity as opposed to young people (although I'm 26 myself). I just assume it's going to be a smooth ride. But these spluttering, Boris Johnson sounding types were the absolutely worst I've encountered. I was sitting 2 rows behind and pretty far to the left of them and I could hear all their inane comments. From the men talking out loud to the women whispering asinine "Oh look a snake! Don't let it go!" type commentary. What was really annoying is that I could see people around them getting agitated but when this guy told them to be quiet one of the men got all confrontational and nobody said a word. I feel a bit of solidarity would have helped.
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Post by Backdrifter on Oct 24, 2018 15:06:15 GMT
^ Once again underlining my own consistent experience through the years that the most annoying people in theatres are routinely the middle-aged/elderly middle-class. Perhaps you're right. Due to what I suppose are my own prejudices I almost always breathe a sigh of relief when elderly, middle class types are sitting in my vicinity as opposed to young people (although I'm 26 myself). I just assume it's going to be a smooth ride. But these spluttering, Boris Johnson sounding types were the absolutely worst I've encountered. I was sitting 2 rows behind and pretty far to the left of them and I could hear all their inane comments. From the men talking out loud to the women whispering asinine "Oh look a snake! Don't let it go!" type commentary. What was really annoying is that I could see people around them getting agitated but when this guy told them to be quiet one of the men got all confrontational and nobody said a word. I feel a bit of solidarity would have helped. Well as I say, it's certainly my own experience that these types are by some distance the worst-behaved demographic. I know what you mean about seeing young people and making assumptions - I'm sorry to say that at one time I'd see e.g. a school group and my heart would sink and yes, I'd assume an evening of irritation was to follow. But there has been just one occasion I've personally had to ask schoolchildren to be quiet, at the Globe about 10 years ago. Now, I no longer make that assumption. I do however avoid certain performances because the audience types they tend to attract, so for example I learned over time to never attend weekday matinees at Richmond Theatre, for the sake of my blood pressure. Of course, I accept there'll be others here who might come steaming in saying "Don't talk to me about school groups!" and regale us with accounts of the trouble they've had with them. I think I remember at least one from the previous board, involving an ineffectual teacher who just sat there without checking the students' bad behaviour. So perhaps I'm just lucky to have largely escaped that, but I've certainly had multiple instances of audible talking, phone-checking and other annoyances from the "spluttering classes" to borrow and paraphrase your terminology! In fact I've had several run-ins with what seemed to be the same curly-haired red-cheeked portly 60-ish pursed-lipped huffy woman in a variety of different fringe and West End venues, though it surely couldn't all have been her. The most memorable time, I was stepping out of a WE venue at the interval to take a brief stroll, and found her stood right in the middle of the exit, gazing at her phone. After several immobile moments, I politely said, "Excuse me." She turned, glared at me - and tutted! That was it - all politeness evaporated. I yelled "YOU'RE BLOCKING THE BLOODY DOOR!" right into her affronted face and shoved past her. By the way - the tut, the primary passive-aggressive weapon of the quietly outraged English middle-class. Like the guy in your anecdote, I've politely (I never go straight in on the attack) asked these types to be quiet, and received an earful of abuse. I'd have weighed in if I was close enough, assuming I hadn't already tackled them.
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Post by Dr Tom on Oct 25, 2018 8:01:05 GMT
However, I can confirm that inconsiderate audience members can be found here too. Last night at The Macbeths at the Eden Court, a woman on the opposite side of the in-the-round seating kept her phone on all the way through the 70-minute show. After looking at it during the first minute or two, she then didn't actually do anything with it. She just kept it on her lap, but clearly still on. Most of the time it was face-down on her lap, but you could still see the light from the screen - in an intimate staging in mostly low light, just a couple of metres from the performers. Probably making an audio recording of the performance.
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Post by Backdrifter on Oct 25, 2018 9:42:44 GMT
However, I can confirm that inconsiderate audience members can be found here too. Last night at The Macbeths at the Eden Court, a woman on the opposite side of the in-the-round seating kept her phone on all the way through the 70-minute show. After looking at it during the first minute or two, she then didn't actually do anything with it. She just kept it on her lap, but clearly still on. Most of the time it was face-down on her lap, but you could still see the light from the screen - in an intimate staging in mostly low light, just a couple of metres from the performers. Probably making an audio recording of the performance. Yes that later occurred to me.
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4,038 posts
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Post by kathryn on Oct 25, 2018 15:31:20 GMT
School groups very rarely a problem, in my experience - the ‘spluttering classes’ are frequent offenders, and fiends/family of the cast are the absolute worst.
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2,041 posts
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Post by 49thand8th on Oct 25, 2018 15:55:25 GMT
Bunch of ageing, entitled, middle class twats in the middle of row C of Antony & Cleopatra tonight. Muttered and whispered throughout about how they know some bit part cast member. Young guy turned around and shushed them and one of them called him a ****. Charming. Did it work, though?
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Post by glossie on Oct 25, 2018 16:44:41 GMT
We were watching repeats of Star Trek Enterprise last night and the crew were watching the Boris Karloff Frankenstein film. Dr Phlox began informing everyone of all the medical inconsistences. T'Pol turned to him and said 'We can stop the show if it's interfering with your conversation'.
That's going to be my line in future.
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Post by harrietcraig on Oct 25, 2018 19:38:55 GMT
Frighteningly bad behavior at a movie theater yesterday. I was sitting in the theater at the Museum of Modern Art waiting for a screening to start. A 60-ish woman in the row in front of me was apparently sitting in such a way that the toes of one foot were inserted into the empty seat in front of her (not a great idea, but not what I would call horrifyingly bad behavior). A 30-ish woman came along and sat in that seat. When the seat went down, the first woman's toes were pinched, causing her to shriek -- perhaps somewhat louder than was strictly necessary, but she was obviously taken by surprise. For some reason, the second woman reacted with fury: she turned around and shouted, "I don't want to sit here in your bad vibes, you ugly old woman!" She then walked back to the aisle and stomped down several rows to a different seat; while stomping, she could be heard to exclaim, "You should be ashamed of yourself!" (to herself? to the first woman? who knows). A scarily disproportionate reaction to what triggered it.
Anyway, the movie ("Dragonwyck", a 1946 Vincent Price/Gene Tierney movie) was great fun, and Vincent Price's daughter spoke to the audience afterwards and told several interesting stories about her father, so all was not lost.
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Post by asfound on Oct 26, 2018 7:27:04 GMT
Bunch of ageing, entitled, middle class twats in the middle of row C of Antony & Cleopatra tonight. Muttered and whispered throughout about how they know some bit part cast member. Young guy turned around and shushed them and one of them called him a ****. Charming. Did it work, though? Not really. The men shut up a bit, the women continued to whisper throughout. I emailed the NT feedback team afterwards, as usual got no response.
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Post by kathryn on Oct 26, 2018 7:53:32 GMT
Frighteningly bad behavior at a movie theater yesterday. I was sitting in the theater at the Museum of Modern Art waiting for a screening to start. A 60-ish woman in the row in front of me was apparently sitting in such a way that the toes of one foot were inserted into the empty seat in front of her (not a great idea, but not what I would call horrifyingly bad behavior). A 30-ish woman came along and sat in that seat. When the seat went down, the first woman's toes were pinched, causing her to shriek -- perhaps somewhat louder than was strictly necessary, but she was obviously taken by surprise. For some reason, the second woman reacted with fury: she turned around and shouted, "I don't want to sit here in your bad vibes, you ugly old woman!" She then walked back to the aisle and stomped down several rows to a different seat; while stomping, she could be heard to exclaim, "You should be ashamed of yourself!" (to herself? to the first woman? who knows). A scarily disproportionate reaction to what triggered it. Anyway, the movie ("Dragonwyck", a 1946 Vincent Price/Gene Tierney movie) was great fun, and Vincent Price's daughter spoke to the audience afterwards and told several interesting stories about her father, so all was not lost. Did she actually know that the woman’s toes were caught in her seat? Maybe she though the woman was protesting her presence/sitting in front of her.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 26, 2018 8:47:16 GMT
Bit of a weird one last night, Tuck at the WMC Ffresh Bar/cabaret venue. So the venue and the show fall in a weird middle ground- it's about Drag, it's in a bar, but it's actually a theatre show. So is being on your phone, taking pictures, going in and out to the bar ok, like it would be at a drag bar? or is it actually more 'shut up and listen' because it's technically a play...I feel like a balance would have been nice (so shout and drink and cheer in the appropriate bits, drink but maybe don't get up for one, but taking pictures is actually really distracting for performers and audience alike in such a small venue)
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Post by MrsCondomine on Oct 29, 2018 12:23:44 GMT
taking pictures is actually really distracting for performers Ever since a dancer friend of mine lost her career thanks to someone taking a flash photo at the wrong time, I've been hardline against photography at any time, for exactly that reason. Good Lord! What happened?!
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