Bad Behaviour at a Show

Alas, it wasn't me.


This time.

Sadly I straight away thought "postage and packing" 🙄

At 'Boys From The Blackstuff' at the Royal Court Liverpool a phone starts ringing. Ushers are looking immediately if they can pinpoint it. It stops. Then it starts ringing again, and this woman actually answers it!

Not in an apologetic quickly exiting kind of way - which she could have easily done. Nope, she stays in her seat having a conversation. Usher is immediately on her, whom she initially ignores. Once she hangs up, she's having a conversation about the phone call with the woman who was with her. Usher comes over again - be quiet or get out.

The play finishes a few minutes after, but not the point.

Now for bad behaviour FROM the theatre: I'm 95% certain I was stuck in the back row at the far end on my own because I was a solo ticket.

According to the T&C's seats are allocated on the day, depending on the day you booked. So I thought I'd have a great seat, as I booked on the day of release. Now either I was the last person to book a stalls seat on that day (which I know I wasn't), or they stuck me in the back row because I was alone.

It's a funny one the recording isn't it? I used to work in theatres and had to handle telling patrons off who tried to record, and as a patron myself I would be very put off if someone near me was trying to film, as I would find it distracting.

At the same time, I'm guilty of watching a number of "bootleg" recordings of various performances on YouTube over the years because they're often the only accessible record of some pretty legendary performances...

Stopping audio recording is a lost battle. It’s rare I’m at a show and I don’t spot someone pushing start/stop on their phone at the appropriate times. No value judgement here, but if someone is messing around with Bluetooth microphones, they should expect to get caught.

Video recording is a different matter. I’ve no idea how people have the concentration to do this, but there are sometimes subtle people I have suspicions about but nothing more, but there have been blatant filmers as well.

If anything, I’m surprised no one has moved onto live streaming yet!

If it's the one I'm thinking of, that's strictly against the rules and they could be banned from the site.

The worst behaviour I’ve seen recently was at the Ralph Fiennes/Indira Varma production of Macbeth in Liverpool. Two rows behind me were a school trip of GCSE students, and behind me were a group of two middle aged couples.

The school kids whispered very briefly in Act One and during the interval one of the men in the couples turned around and was extremely verbally abusive to them, swearing at what were effectively children, involving the usher and their teacher. I don’t condone the whispering but his behaviour was totally out of order.

In the second act, his wife and their friend then proceeded to talk loudly to each other, say the lines along with the actors, go on their phones (full brightness), take selfies, and film the action on the stage. It was staggering — like a bingo card of bad behaviour.

I let them go without saying anything at the end because I suspected they were drunk and as a lone woman I didn’t want to confront the man given how abusive I’d seen him be, but I did pull the teacher of the school kids and say they’d been a credit to her in the second act.

I get that but I guess its how you use such places, I tend to use them for Concerts and fringe things only. Fringe is obviously smaller venues so the chances of a bad seat is reduced and I don’t remember having a bad seat for a concert! Yes they might not be in my preferred place to sit but the difference in what I pay (and usually last minute) and they are charging is a big difference. I guess its down to personal choice but I find them ok for how I use them and would definitely not be asking for a better seat!

Was at 'Tim Rice: My Life In Musicals' at the Liverpool Playhouse.

Afterwards I went to stage door, and two twits were waiting for Sir Tim with items to sign. They were actually partially blocking the door, so no-one could leave without them checking who it was first.

One of them kept badgering staff and crew. 

They initially completely missed the fact that Sir Tim's chauffeur drove his car to the front of the theatre to pick him up there, and didn't get their autographs. 😂

I was front row centre for the Cruel Intentions matinee, then at the interval realised I was stood in a pool of liquid and my jacket was soaked. The Other Palace seating is tiered. Some liquid either side, but not as much.

The people behind managed to avoid looking towards the front and were ignoring this. I found an usher and they did manage to dry the area off (my jacket smelt slightly so has gone in the wash). No real harm done, but can’t understand how people responsible just ignore this.

This isn’t musical theatre related, but is bad behaviour in a theatre…so I suppose it counts?

What I thought would be a relatively quiet night with a generally older crowd turned into one of the most embarrassing audiences I’ve ever sat in…

I’m working in Edinburgh at the moment and went to see the legendary Dionne Warwick last night at the Usher Hall. One thing I love about this venue is that the seats are very well spread and there is loads of leg room, but just after I sat down two women sat in the seats behind me, and one of them said “Oh look there’s loads of room to rest my feet” and proceeded to spread her legs wide and rest both of her feet on the arm rests around my chair. Not only was this totally inappropriate and inconsiderate (And looked RIDICULOUS), but she was also shaking her body, so it was as if I was in a vibrating massage chair - I honestly don’t understand what goes through a persons head to deem this kind of thing acceptable?

I needed the toilet, so decided to speak to a FOH on my way. I explained the situation to her and she gave a really aggressive “Well tell her to move them then” - I was genuinely taken aback by her abrupt tone. I said to her I didn’t want to make a scene, so could she discreetly ask her to stop while I’m at the toilet, to which she let out a massive sigh, gave me a dirty look and marched in as I left. When I came back to the stalls door I smiled at her, expecting her to say something along the lines of how she had spoken to them, but she instead gave me another dirty look and stayed silent. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever experienced worse FOH service, as someone who spends an awful lot of time in venues - it’s as if she was livid that she had to do her job.

I’m not sure what was said whilst I was away, but the women made a few passive aggressive comments about having to “watch what they do” with their feet, with the lady who did it saying “Don’t worry I’ll wait until the lights go down and put them up again” - thankfully she didn’t.

The show was marketed as a sit down interview with a few performances at the end, and Dionne explicitly said this at the beginning when she first came on (She was pretty hilarious, saying she was old and didn’t have time to sing for 90 minutes anymore). As a fan I really loved listening to her chat and hearing her many stories, illustrated with archive footage on a screen above her. This is what the show was advertised to be and what I was expecting, so it was as hardly a huge surprise.

This however obviously didn’t get through to a total idiot of a woman seated in the back stalls, who in the second half started shouting “Sing!” for attention. The first couple of times everyone ignored her, but one of them came whilst Dionne was talking about people she had lost in the aids crisis, she heard it and was visibly annoyed. She paused, raised her finger as if she was about to tell her off, but then said “Actually forget it, I’ll continue”. It was such an embarrassing moment and totally disrespectful.

I had assumed that the lady had been asked to leave at this point, but sadly not…just as Dionne was talking about family she had lost in her life she screamed at the top of her lungs from the back stalls “IF YOU DONT SING HEARTBREAKER RIGHT NOW IM LEAVING, IM BEING SERIOUS!”. Her heckle was so loud that pretty much everyone in the theatre gasped and Dionne abruptly stopped mid sentence. She paused and stared into the audience for what felt like an eternity and then said “Sorry, I didn’t realise we had arranged audio commentary in Edinburgh”, to which everyone laughed, but she was visibly annoyed and again it was just such an embarrassing moment that made me ashamed to be Scottish.

Shortly after this Dionne did a half an hour set of her biggest hits, which at 84 years old I feel is more than enough, and received a standing ovation. She did sing heartbreaker, but the heckling lady had been removed so didn’t get to live out her dream. It’s worth noting as well that the show started at 7:30 and she left the stage at 10:30, so she was hardly slacking!

I know Dionne is playing my hometown of Glasgow on Thursday, so hopefully they show her the respect she deserves!

musicbox sorry to hear your experience - there are some real scumbags it seems at all sorts of shows.