Bad Behaviour at a Show

Sat infront of me at School of Rock on Sunday - the most fidgety kid ever! I was in row B stalls he was in A. Awful, its a shame there isn't an age limit because clearly far too young for the show. The mother was bad too, constantly talking to him and no attempt to control. Luckily we moved along for the second act.

As opposed to "Oh f*ck, it's Anthony Sher!" over at the Barbican.

So tonight I witnessed what was possibly the worst behaviour I have ever seen in all my years of theatregoing...and I'm really sad to have to say that it came from a member of FOH staff.

Now I've worked as both an Usher and a FOH Manager so can see this from different angles, but here's what happened...

So we were at the Curtain Call of Wicked, when two (separate) ladies in Rows A and B of the Circle take a couple of photographs, during the bows. First point to note, yes this isn't allowed, and yes Wicked do make two announcements to advise this, one pre-show and one at the end of the interval.

As the curtain comes down and the house lights come up, down comes an Usher - now, in this situation my tact would have been to politely remind the customers that the taking of photographs is not permitted and request that they delete the photos, bearing in mind that despite the two announcements, they may not be aware that it's forbidden. (Equally they may know full well and be just trying their luck, but when people are spending a fortune you have to give them the benefit of the doubt).

This wasn't the tactic that this particular usher decided to go for...what came next was a torrent of aggression that I've never seen from somebody working in a customer-facing role in the service industry...pointing at each of the ladies "you and you - show me your photos, now...pass me your phone" I can't quite get across the staff member's tone on here, but it was as if he was a teacher, yelling at some naughty pupils. He ended up taking the phones off the customers (against every rule of working FOH), deleting the photos himself, before proceeding to lecture them on all of the reasons why taking photographs during a show is forbidden, and informing them that breaking this rule could land them with a fine of £25,000 (complete rubbish, unless I am mistaken?), and finished off with an equally-agressive "Don't ever do that again, in any theatre - do you understand me?"

Genuinely, I was gobsmacked. Pesky photo-takers are amongst the most annoying people in the theatre, but there are ways to deal with these issues, and what I witnessed tonight was absolutely not the way to deal with it. If somebody is doing it during the show itself, then sometimes it is necessary to be a little more forceful in getting them to stop so to not disturb those sat in the vicinity, but to leap straight in with such aggression left me dumbfounded. I don't know if it's a training issue or just a rogue member of staff, but I actually felt embarrassed by what I saw.

The Red Barn last night, lots of coughing through the first ten-fifteen minutes, at one point descending into a bout of 'To Me To You' cough-offs between alternating sides of the theatre, special thanks to the man sat behind me in the third row who coughed about ten times in the space of a few minutes, sounding like a half wit revving up a moped, before his phone got a text message which he then preceded to read for a good few minutes, casting light all around like he was out in the snow storm himself looking for a way home. Good grief.

I think that is really bad.  I can understand how someone might, in the excitement, take a photo of a curtain call as it doesn't really interrupt the world of the play, etc.  (I know they shouldn't do it, the designer has copyright to the set, etc. but they will have seen millions of curtain photos on Facebook/Twitter.)   As they didn't ruin anyone's evening, a gentle reminder  and a request to delete would have been sufficient.  I wonder if something  had previously happened to make FOH be so aggressive?
A friend once suggested that if theatres want to attract a wider audience maybe they should embrace social media more - let people take photos before or after the show, for example, encourage texting during the interval (I think he went so far as saying having a point in the show when people could take selfies with the cast...okay, maybe too much.) 

Also: Iestyn Davies recital in Wigmore Hall - beautifully quiet with just a voice and a lute. An elderly gentleman right behind me (row C) talking ALL the way through second half of the show, consulting with his wife "where are we?" and staring at his programme. He ignore several looks of death from people sitting around and trying to enjoy the show. At one point I lost it, turn around and politely asked him to be silent which he also ignored. After multiply attempts of his wife to make him stop he finally shut up but started to bang his feet up on my seat... I simply don't understand - if you are clearly not into it and restless so much for any reason - just bloody LEAVE!

I took a friend to see a performance of Miss Saigon on it's first UK tour in Southampton.  Before the show started, a woman sat behind started telling her friend the plot, the helicopter and even what happens at the end.  She did it all so quick that by the time my friend, who had not seen the show, realised what she was hearing (the woman was LOUD!) she had heard the main plotlines and spoilers.  At this point, my friend turned around and said "thanks for that - i dont know why we bothered paying to see the show when we could have just got Foghorn Leghorn to bellow the story to us".  The woman got a bit arsey, her friend told her to shush and she never uttered another word (that we heard).  

The Last Five Years tonight - I was second row. About an hour in I heard a lot of rustling from behind me - assumed someone opening a bag of sweets, irritating but hopefully over quickly. But no, rustling continued and eventually I turned around to glare at the person in the hope they'd stop and found it wasn't a bag of sweets but several plastic cups, bottles and a programme! Why she decided that during the middle of a quiet part of the show was the time to gather all her rubbish together I have no idea...

Not doubting you, Theatremonkey, though hard to believe people would deliberately sit in the wrong seats (except maybe once the lights had gone down and it looked as though they weren't booked, but even then there'd always be the chance of latecomers arriving to claim them), but whether by accident or design, surely the only response when faced with the rightful occupant is a profuse apology?

Audience members who think rules don't apply...at Great Comet in NY last week... there are 'stages' throughout the audience (basically a platform the width of a row of seats) quite clearly part of the set, people in front of my came in and the woman proceeded to put all her clothes and drinks on the stage behind her. An usher asked her to move them, she rolled her eyes then complied. Five minutes later the stuff was back. Usher asked again she sighed and complied. A little way into the show one of them loudly says "Does anyone have any idea what's going on?" and she proceeded to LOUDLY explain.

They left at the interval...

Meanwhile behind me I had extreme ice rustlers. Though the gentleman directly behind did apologise profusely for his knees hitting our seats, as he was so tall (he was a very large man) which I thought was considerate-and he hadn't actually bothered me at all.