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Post by Mr Snow on Mar 8, 2018 14:53:12 GMT
At the Opera, there was a bloke literally shaking in his seat!
"Mar 8, 2018 2:00:59 GMT parsley said: I saw it at the ROH
Tuesday evening
Hated the first act So much
Was shaking in my seat"
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Post by ellie1981 on Mar 15, 2018 20:41:43 GMT
This isn’t much, but it ruined my experience last week at Lady Windermere’s Fan.
I was with two friends in the second row Dress Circle. Directly behind us was the most obnoxious man who just would not stop belly laughing. OK, fine it’s a comedy, but he found absolutely everything hysterical in the loudest possible way, even repeating lines back to himself at top volume. It was like having Brian Blessed with a megaphone sitting on your shoulder. Strangely in the parts of the play where the entire audience was laughing along, his reaction to those lines were significantly delayed. We were expecting an older gentleman of at least mid 50s, but he looked barely 40.
At the start of the second act, my friend politely asked him if he could tone it down. Instead of being surprised, he immediately quipped back “NO! IF TOU DONT LIKE IT YOU CAN SIT SOMEWHERE ELSE”. Never mind we had paid a lot for our seats and the only free ones in the section were right at the back (worth significantly less). It was like he was actively trying to annoy other people and wasn’t in the least bit surprised when he was approached.
Anyway, my mate who is significantly more assertive than I am just got up to tell and usher. As soon as the usher stood monitoring the row, he toned it down, indicating that the noise was not his natural reaction to the play.
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Post by grannyjx6 on Mar 15, 2018 23:55:00 GMT
I know this is almost par for the course but at Mamma Mia matinee today, 6 women in front of me and my husband were drinking the whole way through the show (small bottles of wine, sneaked in their handbags, loudly singing along and swaying from side to side plus obligatory hand movements. Of course they got up at the end to dance, turning round and telling all us miserable so and so's to get up too. The problem is we were in the balcony with a very steep rake and there were signs up asking us not to stand (health and safety). So I remained seated and had the last ten minutes or so completely obliterated by their backsides.
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Post by wickedgrin on Mar 16, 2018 9:57:27 GMT
I find audience behaviour worse the more "popular" the piece is - audiences for plays are generally better behaved than musical audiences.
I had the full gamut of bad behaviour in one go at Young Frankenstein last week.
1. A young couple in front of me (stalls) were constantly leaning on each other and kissing - get a room! 2. The couple to the left of me were sharing a bottle of red wine (it stank) and had a second bottle for the second act! 3. A woman next but one to me on my right was constantly checking her phone every 3/4 minutes throughout act one! I did lean forward and glare at her and the checking became less frequent but still went on. 4. A man behind me had to re-tell the punchlines to his companion (who was deaf) throughout!
It was a testament to how slick the show was, that all this did not ruin my evening.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2018 18:11:01 GMT
2. The couple to the left of me were sharing a bottle of red wine (it stank) and had a second bottle for the second act! So two people had a bottle of wine each, over the course of an evening. This is shocking?
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Post by lonlad on Mar 17, 2018 1:45:01 GMT
Um, in a theatre it certainly is: a case less of "get a room" than "get a stool at the bar" ..... sounds like the audiences at DIRTY DANCING who were so pissed that they used to scare the cast.
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Post by Tibidabo on Mar 17, 2018 10:02:53 GMT
^Now I've had... the fright of my life... and I owe it all to you... Hold it together Monkey. Big girls don't cry..yi yi...
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2018 10:50:05 GMT
2. The couple to the left of me were sharing a bottle of red wine (it stank) and had a second bottle for the second act! So two people had a bottle of wine each, over the course of an evening. This is shocking? It is. Lightweights.
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Post by TallPaul on Mar 17, 2018 13:53:04 GMT
I know this is almost par for the course but at Mamma Mia matinee today, 6 women in front of me and my husband were drinking the whole way through the show (small bottles of wine, sneaked in their handbags, loudly singing along and swaying from side to side plus obligatory hand movements. Of course they got up at the end to dance, turning round and telling all us miserable so and so's to get up too. The problem is we were in the balcony with a very steep rake and there were signs up asking us not to stand (health and safety). So I remained seated and had the last ten minutes or so completely obliterated by their backsides. The police are clearly expecting the worst from today's sold-out audiences. They're dressed in full riot gear, as though they're going to a tree protest!!! When I was sheltering from the snow earlier, a large group of women passed me, obviously on their way, via a hostellry or three, to the Lyceum.
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Post by ensembleswings on Mar 17, 2018 18:32:37 GMT
Not so much bad behaviour more just incredibly irritating but a guy sat a couple of seats along from me at Wicked on Wednesday sat there clicking a pen from the moment the Wizard appeared until the end of the show. It sounds like nothing but a clicking pen is one of those few sounds that really irritate me, I can't stand it. I did glare a few times during the lead up to Defying Gravity (and then said something in the interval) and thought that had done the trick as he stopped but then he started again after Thank Goodness, with a few glares of his own thrown in for good measure.
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Xanderl
Member
Not always very high value in terms of ticket yield or donations
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Post by Xanderl on Mar 18, 2018 7:09:09 GMT
Just saw this mentioned on BBC News - really hoping this idea doesn't take off!! hidratespark.com/
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4,799 posts
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Post by The Matthew on Mar 18, 2018 8:35:42 GMT
Just saw this mentioned on BBC News - really hoping this idea doesn't take off!! hidratespark.com/What I love about that is that they push the fact that they've used a bog-standard battery holder rather than a built-in recharging circuit as a feature. No recharging required: just throw away the old cells and buy new ones. Mind you, I can't really find it in me to be too hard on them over that. If you can make your product policy "we save money so you don't have to" and still get people to buy it then good luck to you.
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Post by 49thand8th on Mar 18, 2018 15:34:40 GMT
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Post by harrietcraig on Mar 19, 2018 2:16:17 GMT
Many years ago, I saw Frank Langella in Dracula on Broadway. Someone took a flash photograph when he made his entrance. He turned to the audience and said, "I'm going to go offstage now and make my entrance again. If anyone takes a photograph when I make my entrance this time -- or at any other time during the performance -- I will go offstage again, and I won't return". (I'm obviously paraphrasing from distant memory, but that's more or less what I remember him saying.) There were no more photographs taken during that performance.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 19, 2018 7:59:16 GMT
When I saw Hamlet at the NT years ago someone managed (must have been practiced and timed to perfection!) to take a flash photo just as Rory Kinnear dropped his trousers. It was incredibly irritating and juvenile, but I also quite admired the shameless devotion to getting a pic of him in his boxers.
Insert your own joke about literal interpretations of flash photography.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 19, 2018 19:19:01 GMT
When I saw Hamlet at the NT years ago someone managed (must have been practiced and timed to perfection!) to take a flash photo just as Rory Kinnear dropped his trousers. It was incredibly irritating and juvenile, but I also quite admired the shameless devotion to getting a pic of him in his boxers. Insert your own joke about literal interpretations of flash photography. Opps sorry @abby. It's OK though now. I've had some lessons so I know how to use my camera properly nowadays.
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Post by itsemily on Mar 19, 2018 19:34:30 GMT
A couple of years ago whilst watching Billy Elliot this extremely loud and obnoxious woman was sitting in front of us, she was noisily telling the people she was with that she was going to film it (there was an usher nearby at the time but they seemed quite oblivious to what was going on) she spent several minutes before hand faffing about with the lighting and settings on the phone, then she put it in the front pocket of her shirt, however at the interval when she took her phone out to check on it, she'd accidently clicked the front facing camera so she just had an hour and 20 minute(ish) video of her own chest, the sound had been quite bad that day and we had really struggled to hear what people were saying so the woman could not have even made a good audio recording from it , she was so pissed off about it and spent the interval swearing and muttering to herself, it did make us laugh. I was tempted to point out that you could buy a DVD of it quite cheaply but felt she would not have appreciated my helpful input.
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Post by longinthetooth on Mar 19, 2018 22:00:48 GMT
I'm reminded of a show a couple of years ago (can't remember what it was, it was that good), when a woman next to us started filming. My companion suggested this was not a good idea, which evoked the response, "Oh, it's not for me, it's for her Nan, who's in hospital" (indicating presumably her daughter on her other side). Oh, so that made it ok then .....
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Post by Lemansky on Mar 21, 2018 10:33:21 GMT
I was at the ROH last night for The Winter's Tale, which was beautiful. However one whole bank of seats in the Amphitheatre was filled with what seemed to be a group of students. They carried on talking when the lights dimmed, and this production doesn't have an overture, it goes straight into the prologue of the story. They kept being told to shhhh, which got more frustrated as they ignored it, until someone told them, very loudly, to shut up! Thankfully that worked, but I've never experienced that level of noise during the ballet, definitely not once the production had actually started.
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Mar 21, 2018 18:04:38 GMT
More amusing, person crunching through a large back of crisps in the row in front ON STAGE at "Jubilee." Fortunately, she pushed off and didn't come back at the interval. Anarchy only goes so far, in my book. Were they monster munch?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2018 9:45:05 GMT
American woman a few seats across from me at The Birthday Party was wandering around the stalls during the interval trying to find an outlet to charge her phone. I think she found one and just left it there cause she came back to her seat without it. Then an usher appeared and said "Whoever's charging their phone over here, could you please move it?", and she dejectedly got up to retrieve her phone and the charger.
Man sat next to me was scrolling through his phone a good five minutes after the actors came on stage. Almost nudged him and told him to put it away, but thankfully he did once Zoe Wanamaker said something funny.
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Post by andrew on Mar 22, 2018 11:54:03 GMT
I had quite an elderly man next to me at Long Day's Journey a couple of nights ago who seemed to immediately go to sleep next to me as the play started, head bowed right down, chin on his chest etc. I thought that was just dreadful, why come in the first place? No actor wants to see someone sleeping in the stalls by minute 5. Then at the interval I stood up and said excuse me a few times and he just sort of sat there, his friend had to manoeuvre his legs for him. After a bit of studious observation I figured out the man was blind. Glad I didn't say anything.
That doesn't excuse his act 2 behaviour of 'quoting along' with the Shakespeare lines the characters reference. I don't need to know how familiar you are with the bard, it isn't OK at a musical, and it isn't OK here.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2018 10:31:45 GMT
I had a gaggle of middle aged, quite well to do looking drunks in front of me at Motherf***er with the Hat last night. Who thought it was GREAT to LAUGH REALLY LOUDLY and TALK REALLY LOUDLY especially at the bits nobody else was laughing at.
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Xanderl
Member
Not always very high value in terms of ticket yield or donations
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Post by Xanderl on Mar 23, 2018 12:36:42 GMT
From the popbitch email this week. Spoilered for taste reasons - this is not safe for work! The West End is a notoriously debauched place, but Motown: The Musical is getting itself an extra special reputation for hedonism.
One recent audience was treated to a little sideshow in the royal box, when a woman started giving her companion for the night a very visible blowjob. Another man who attended last year enjoyed the show so much that, when he was asked to leave for being too drunk, he stood outside the theatre doors and started furiously masturbating.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2018 13:06:36 GMT
Re the above: that's one you just read and think, why? why? whhhy?
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Post by basi1faw1ty on Mar 23, 2018 13:28:05 GMT
Oh for heaven's sake, that's... ugh! UGH!! I nearly brought up my lunch!
(Entirely my fault ofc, I couldn't resist clicking the link even though you warned us.)
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2018 13:36:03 GMT
Oh for heaven's sake, that's... ugh! UGH!! I nearly brought up my lunch! (Entirely my fault ofc, I couldn't resist clicking the link even though you warned us.) Same, I mean you can't give me a big red 'don't look here' warning sign and expect me not to look. Uggggh. I expect that stuff from teens at my local part (it's classy here) but uggggh
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Post by TallPaul on Mar 23, 2018 13:38:11 GMT
^Is "local part" a Freudian slip?
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Post by couldileaveyou on Mar 23, 2018 14:09:28 GMT
From the popbitch email this week. Spoilered for taste reasons - this is not safe for work! The West End is a notoriously debauched place, but Motown: The Musical is getting itself an extra special reputation for hedonism.
One recent audience was treated to a little sideshow in the royal box, when a woman started giving her companion for the night a very visible blowjob. Another man who attended last year enjoyed the show so much that, when he was asked to leave for being too drunk, he stood outside the theatre doors and started furiously masturbating.
My fifteen minutes of celebrity have finally arrived
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2018 14:11:33 GMT
Re the above: that's one you just read and think, why? why? whhhy? I can understand the blowjob more than I can understand the furious masturbation. Not sure why "fury" would drive someone to masturbation.
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