The (now obligatory) Standing Ovation

I'm giving up on ovations and going for the Nicole Kidman method from now on. 'nuff said.

Ya know, even though people took the piss out of her clap, she really was the best dressed at the Oscars this year! Just stunning!

Oooo and another thing that bugs me, we have already discussed curtain calls that come with musical that becomes clap alongs (hate it!) but, if a curtain call has a clap along, there is always that one idiot who can't clap in time when they are supposed too. Now that does bug me! More than life itself!

Fave

"Bop"?

You enjoy yourself love, my Mum tells me it was great growing up in the 70's!

I will rarely join in a standing ovation because if you expend all your superlatives on what is merely good or very good, what do you reserve for the truly outstanding?

I rather suspect there is some intelligence involved in NOT wanting to put your (plastic) glass of red wine between your legs - especially if you're wearing a light colour, a skirt or dress - or the alternative of on the floor, in the very restricted space in front of a theatre seat. You ever tried to pick up a glass of red wine, from the floor of a darkened theatre, when you don't actually have the space to bend down properly, and you can't see it, without jostling your neighbours and/or spilling it?!!!

After a few near misses and other adventures - and, yes, not being able to clap after performances - I've decided that a 'no drinks except a bottle of water' policy during performances is best for me. I tend not to have a drink in the interval either. I'm a lightweight, so under 20 minutes to down a glass of wine, or any other alcoholic drink, is a recipe for disaster! I now get to the theatre early, to relax in the theatre bar beforehand with a drink, and I spend my intervals in the inevitable toilet queues instead!!

At Funny Girl on Saturday evening, the party in front of us (front stalls) spent the entire performance drinking full bottles of wine, and passing them up and down the row, plus having a 20 minute rant about getting their interval drinks delivered incorrectly. I'm also fairly sure that one of them was vaping throughout the entire performance - she was inhaling on something that looked like the blocky part of an e-cig, but there was no vapour so I'm not actually sure what it was!!!! 

BTW, the FG standing ovation, at the end of the show, was deserved and there was none of the 'stretching it out' malarky I've seen at other shows. There was a single bow from the performers, Sheridan came on, big standing ovation, whole cast took a final bow, and everyone was off stage. I've been to shows where they took endless minutes of bows and repeated on and offs, plus reprises and encores! Honestly, I don't mind mid-show ovations, the very few I've experienced have been well deserved by the performer(s). It's the dragging out at the end that's mildly annoying - you end up with half your arm in your coat, thinking the shows over, and they're cracking into the 2nd repeat of the finale song, and you have to keep clapping!! Just a mini peeve of mine!

That's the one that made me so annoyed! Endless, and pretty much undeserved for it's length, as though they were all Liza/Barbra on their farewell tour! Juke box musicals, for the most part, are the worst offenders for this. Not sure why, but I suspect they are all determined to send their audience out after a great big 'fun' singalong, in order to erase the memory of the slightly mediocre 2 hours that preceded that! I'm very much not an audience participation kind of person, so the enforced 'get up and dance' of an elongated encore and curtain call is hell for me!

Blood Brothers does have the ultimate 'yank your heart out and make you cry' finale! The standing ovation is deserved, but a cynic would suppose that the script helps massively, at that point in the show, in creating the perfect atmosphere for the audience to respond to the performances! I do love the show though, and remember leaving the theatre with very smudged mascara!

I don't like it when people stand right in front of me. I don't care how wonderful they think the show has been. Unless we all stand up, stay in your seat madam.

It's "Miss"..... thank you. 

I'm a big adherent to the idea that your right to do what you want ends where it impedes someone else's ability to do what they want, but in the case of a standing ovation, I don't think that applies. It's unreasonable to expect all the people in front of you to know you don't want them to stand up, and it's unreasonable to expect them to curb their expression of enjoyment once you tell them. If they were standing up during the show then you should absolutely not let them get away with it, but it's a curtain call, just how interesting is it to watch people bow anyway? If you know you really can't handle people standing in front of you during a curtain call in a theatre where it is likely that people will be standing during a curtain call then it's your responsibility to book a front row ticket, not expect everyone else to bend to your will. You don't have to like it, but you don't get to tell them they can't.