Bad Behaviour at a Show

There's more on the show's thread in Musicals... theatreboard.co.uk/thread/111/bodyguard?page=36

Good Morning everyone, first time I've posted, and although this is not strictly 'bad behaviour', I wondered what people thought of this

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38267678

As far as relaxed performances are concerned, every show that runs for more than a week or so should try to have at least one relaxed performance, and I'd venture to suggest that for shows that run longer than a handful of weeks some of those relaxed performances should be at weekends rather than tucked away at times when nobody else wants to see them. But to suggest that all performances should be relaxed comes across as a petulant "It's so unfair that everything's arranged around someone else's needs. Everything should be arranged around my needs!"

I have trouble hearing when there's background noise. I'm not deaf — my ability to hear is just fine — but as soon as the level of background noise starts to rise I lose the ability to separate out speech from everything else. I struggle in pubs if they get busy; clubs are right out. Talking to people in the street rarely works, and I can't use a mobile phone outside or anywhere where other people are speaking. Theatre and cinema I can manage if the audience is quiet, but if the sound effects are overdone then I can't follow what people are saying. The number of things I can do in the evening is limited as it is. If all performances were relaxed performances then I wouldn't be able to enjoy anything, ever.

There are loads of people with special requirements, but if you have special requirements then you need to accept that your requirements are special and you can't expect to get everything your way every time. It's great that steps are being taken to expand various forms of entertainment to people who would once have been left out — titling and signing for the deaf, touch tours for the blind, lights-on performances, commercial-and-trailer-free cinema screenings, wheelchair spaces that aren't added as an afterthought — and there should certainly be enough of all those things that it's never a case of people having to miss their one and only chance, but it should also never be the case that one group gets to have everything arranged to suit their own needs regardless of the effect on others.

People who think all performances should be relaxed don't understand the differences made to productions for them be so. It's not just a case of leaving some house lights on and not minding when someone makes noise. Last time I did one we dropped sound levels (scary effects doubly so), removed lights that might blind or startle, cut all pyrotechnics, cut all smoke and dry ice, removed props that might make a situation more scary than it needed, redirected characters to talk more to the audience and be their friends as it were, removed row upon row of seats to allow for wheel chair access, reduced the seat number massively (think we dropped to a third capacity) to allow people to spread out and not feel claustrophobic, redeployed staff to make sure people were looked after, altered flying sequences so they got less close to the audience, and so on and so on. It affected the artistic direction of the show. It was a wonderful thing to do as a one off (show only ran 6 weeks), and the audience were massively appreciative but to tone things down to be acceptable for all at every performance isn't what we or they would want.

I'm currently mixing a panto which gives me a prime view of bad behaviour. Obviously panto is far more accepting and free form as far as what an audience can do but some recent stand outs include: a 10 year old approaching me at the sound desk mid-sole to ask if their was a power socket she could plug her phone into; a teacher who did not stop pissing about with her phone the entire time, not even to clap; a small child taking a "hands on" interest in some of my sound equipment and only when I noticed and approached him did their parent bother to do anything; a child professing very loudly for a good half-hour that he didn't like the show to which the parents only reaction was to shush him every so often (take the poor bugger home!)

They do shout out wonderful things though, them kids. My favourite this week was, as the Princess accepts the Prince's marriage proposal, a kid by me shouts "You only just met him!" which even the Princess later conceeded that it was a fair point.

Saturday, Madrid, Spanish production of Dirty Dancing. Woman in front row eats a bag of crisps, and decides the best place to leave the empty bag is... on stage. The show hadn't started yet, but come on, seriously?

Saturday at Jesus Christ Superstar in Amsterdam. The lady 1 seat over had been in an amateur production at some point and felt the need to tell her companions what the exact differences were in staging, clothes and singing. I decided to say something at the interval but obviously they came back 5 minutes late. The guy next to me finally understood my death stares somehwere around The Crucifixion and just grinned stupidly shrugged his shoulders and asked her who the guy on the right of the stage was supposed to be.

At the otherwise sublime 'She Loves Me' one member of the family in front of us got up twice, clomped up the stairs and back again. Then another did the same, but wasn't allowed back in until the interval Heard her say, 'I had to go to the loo. I've had three children. What do they expect?' Just a bit too much info there.

Meanwhile someone else during a very poignant bit got her coat and bag and exited. You could see the actors eyes slightly dart towards her as she crept out. It was so good I can only think she had a train to catch or something.

But I hear there was a mouse at another performance. Ours was entirely mouse-free.

I've had three children and go before the play starts.

Oh no! That's where my kids are sitting tomorrow. My son's tall but my daughter is titchy. Oh well.

If it's the very back row, foxa, send her with a backpack full of coats. It makes for an excellent adult booster seat.