Audiences: Can't live with them can't live without them

[Mashinka]

Badly behaved audience members are a recurring theme on Ballet Talk, here are some examples from today's Times of peoples experiences in theatres going back quite a number of years:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol...icle6723375.ece

The example of Spike Milligan re-starting the performance for a latecomer must have been in the comedy 'Son of Oblemov' and I think he always did this if someone turned up late, he certainly did when I saw that show.

[dirac]

Many thanks for posting this, Mashinka. It's a perennial topic, for obvious reasons - bad manners are always with us.

[bart]

I agree. Thanks, Mashinka. My heart went out to the Guide Dog accompanying his blind master to the performance of Lucia at Covent Garden. So he fell asleep and started snoring. Big deal. I've seen plenty of tired executives doing the same at the Met and the end of a long hard day.

I was quite impressed by the lady who responded to the group of bored and talkative teenagers at The Tempest by hitting one on the head with her program. Here in the U.S. a riot might have resulted. Or a serious allegation of "child abuse."

[carbro]

I've done my share of kvetching about fellow audience members in these forums, but the absolute worst was at ABT this past spring when one of my neighbors -- how to describe this politely? -- was having digestive problems. After the third or fourth emission and in the midst of dancing, I had to move. Fortunately, there were vacant seats nearby but out of olfactory range.

I don't know how other neighbors managed to keep in their seats.

Beano, people. Beano.

[dirac]

Badly behaved audience members are a recurring theme on Ballet Talk, here are some examples from today's Times of peoples experiences in theatres going back quite a number of years:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol...icle6723375.ece

The example of Spike Milligan re-starting the performance for a latecomer must have been in the comedy 'Son of Oblemov' and I think he always did this if someone turned up late, he certainly did when I saw that show.

I read that Nathan Lane used to do something similar to latecomers for 'A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,' singling out the unfortunate late arrivals and launching a rapid fire summation of what had gone before.

[Helene]

I was at a performance of "Much Ado About Nothing" by the Royal Shakespeare Company in London, and a woman, who was trying to tell the usher she'd rather sit in an empty seat close by, was pushed down the aisle towards the front -- her actual seat was in the middle of that row -- while the actor playing Benedict interrupted the show to seat her, in character. She was mortified.

[cubanmiamiboy]

I was quite impressed by the lady who responded to the group of bored and talkative teenagers at The Tempest by hitting one on the head with her program.

That's my kind of girl!!

[Petra]

Wow, compared to some of those stories I really have nothing to complain about. Although the 'lady' I sat next to last night at the theatre dropped her handbag on my feet, couldn't stop texting and drank soda (!) throughout, she did leave during the interval...

[Anthony_NYC]

In case you missed it, Patti Lupone had at a whack at somebody taking pictures during "Rose's Turn." And we can all hear it because meanwhile somebody else was recording!