Bad Behaviour at a Show

This depends so much on FOH managers. Ushers can’t always depend on back up if situation escalates - speaking from experience. 

That's true, and also filming is usually easier to spot from the ushers position, especially looking down to the stalls from a circle or balcony

I do think it's fair to blame ushers for people's bad behaviour, there's only so much they can do.

At Mean Girls recently I was sat behind a family with two daughters - the younger one didn’t sit still for the entire show and kept asking her mum questions about what was happening/ asking her to explain jokes that people were laughing at. Also for some reason in both acts, they used What’s Wrong With Me? (Gretchen’s song and then its reprise) as their time to noisily root around a big bag and get snacks out…

Yes, I often find that cheaper tickets go to regular theatregoers who take advantage of lower prices in order to see as much theatre as possible. Those people are usually very well-behaved!

The expensive seats often go to those who have a lot of excess cash and can tend to think that the world revolves about them because they pay so much for everything. Or it's part of a "big night out" where they just want to drink and eat out and dress up, with no real interest in the show they're seeing.

I’m as stringent about bad behaviour in the theatre as anyone (to the extent I’d say I’m slightly misophonic), but I also don’t think it matters how much anyone pays. It’s usually the type of show, rather than the cost of the ticket, and I don’t think we should be encouraging any promoters to increase prices when they’re already so extortionate! I’d much rather gatekeep theatres from crap like Dirty Dancing which tacitly encourage those kind of antics than exclude poorer people from experiencing great shows.

I couldn't quite believe it when I saw that in the papers this morning. 

Even when they are pro-active it doesn't always work.
The ushers were extremely proactive at Manchester Opera House during my visit I have described earlier in the thread and picked up on the obnoxious behaviour of the group sat in front of me very early on, standing nearby and giving them warnings straight away. When even that didn't work, the group were removed at the interval.

I was at Hadestown sat next to a pair of very enthusastic fans of the show. Their enthusiasm was lovely and it’s great how theatre can resonate with young people and encourage them into a career in the arts as was clearly the case based from their conversations about how lights had been rigged and other backstage stuff. All this would have been fine - but then one of the girls (who happened to speak louder than a train) started talking about how she was excited to see certain parts of the show, dropping spoilers of moments like confetti to everyone around her. I can forgive the whooping after every song (but please, don’t), but although Ive listened to the soundtrack plenty of times and seen trailers and promos, she completely spoilt a couple of moments for me. I wish people would be more considerate.

However - a very well behaved audience during the show itself! Loved the show by the way, and I wish Melanie La Barrie was my friend!

The Fortune's layout is its own kind of medieval torture device. I've never been so cramped in my life!

Last night at the first preview of Hello Dolly.

The overture started just as England were taking the penalties and several people around me were watching on their phones including a woman sat behind me who also had the commentary on. I told her to turn it off, she said sorry and then couldn't figure out how to turn the volume down for about 20 seconds. Seriously, if the footie is more important then stay at home and watch it!
As we went to take our seats (the same party of people as above) had a coat right over the back of my friends seat. The woman looked up and said "do you went me to move it", well obviously yes. She then moved it a bit and asked if she should remove it totally, again yes.
One of them decided she would like to sing and hum along when she recognised a song which was rather annoying. Then in the interval when Jim Carter (Imelda's husband) walked up the aisle being noticed by no one she shouted out "Jim Carter" really loudly. He looked totally embarassed.

To be honest, I'd rather a delayed start and what happened than audience members watching on phones, which is almost certainly what would have happened otherwise.