37 replies to this topic

[Tintin]

Matthew Winn, I would add the last minute visit to the loo to that list. It is incredible that they wait until that time to allow nature to take its course. Still, I guess it is just as well they do go out, as goodness knows what such morons would do if prevented from doing so.

Some years ago a friend of mine went to a matinee at the Lyric Hammersmith and the audience was joined by two drunken women who kept talking loudly throughout the performance. At a certain point, the leading actress, the late Constance Cummings, stopped and said "I can't go on. This has got to stop". Then the ushers went in and forcibly carried the two women out, screaming. After that the performance continued uninterrupted.

I witnessed a similar happening years ago at the Gardner Centre in Brighton. After the drunk was carried out the audience applauded, especially after the leading actor had turned to the drunk and said "Excuse me sir, but are you a Union member?"

[Welthorpe]

I went to a production recently and sat in front of a group of school kids and two teachers. The kids were completely enthralled in the production and didn't utter a word - but the two teachers would not shut up and chatted away throughout the whole production - and nothing to do with the play. It was all about who was going to get promoted and other school gossip.

[Lynette]

At Stratford quite recently, some uppish bloke who was sitting behind me and one seat along told me to stop fidgeting. Well, he picked on the wrong one there, didn't he? I think I gave definition to the class war.

I like to think I am well behaved in the theatre, I groan quietly when the show is dire and slurp my water delicately. I don't mind the odd whisper but the other night at Coriolanus there was a horrible, loud and persistent cough. It was really awful. Coughers should either know they are and bring the right sweeties to suck or leave the auditorium until they are better.

My heart sinks when I see a school trip but on the whole they are ok these days.

[JWC]

The "problem" with school parties (and I speak as an ex teacher) is that there are actually a number of issues

1) Many kids cannot culturally distinguish and have not been taught to discriminate between watching a live performance and watching something on a screen; they, therefore, have little conception that if they are talk they are breaking the concentration of performers and audience. This is further enhanced by the vocally partisan reactions encouraged from audiences in TV "talent" shows and the fact that in many homes you don't so much watch TV as have it on as background to whatever else you're doing.

2) Visits to theatres by schools are much rarer since the ridiculous health and safety regulations were introduced. (Four page risk assessments on a theatre visit anyone?) Teachers are therefore more reluctant to take kids out which in turn means that the experience is les common and the etiquette does not become second nature.

3) If youngsters have been to a theatre it's a sure bet that it will have been a pantomime where audience participation is expected and encouraged. How confusing is that?

4) Schools TV programmes always show Elizabethans at the Globe watching Shakespeare in a noisy rowdy atmosphere

5) The behaviour of some adults leaves a lot to be desired (see, for instance, the inane comments in the mobile phone strand) and of course "monkey see, monkey do"

6) Too many theatres encourage eating sweets etc. as part of the experience because they have to look to profits. This means that the performance becomes secondary to eating. Rather ironic, when in many restaurants the act of eating is secondary to the "performance element" of making sure the kids are entertained.

Now, of course, much of this can be offset by "educating" pupils otherwise; personally this was something I always did. I'm afraid there is not a simple solution though. If there is a school party in try and think positively - at least there's a hope that they will keep supporting the live arts when they get older

[Backdrifter]

The thing I always end up saying in discussions like this is that I've been relatively untroubled by the school parties. As someone said earlier, my heart sinks when I see them but unfairly as it usually turns out. They tend, in my experiece, to be okay. On one occasion, I asked some schoolboys at the Globe to be quiet, and they did. Every other time I've had to confront talkers, it's been adults. And as I said earlier and others have found too, the most common reaction these days is disbelief, or you're ignored, or they swear at you.

[tsaurus]

School parties can sometimes be a problem, but I found myself seated in the middle of a school party at the Olivier recently and they behaved impeccably.  Later the same week I went to 'Porgy and Bess' and a group of well-healed 50-somethings on the row behind guffawed through the overture and continued to rustle sweet papers and chatter throughout the whole performance.  Anti-social theatre behaviour is definitely not the preserve of the young.

[Ian]

I have generally found school parties to be amongst the best behaved audiences in theatre.

The exception to the rule seems to be when there is "adult" content in the performance which adolescents, it seems, are totally ill-equipped to deal with. The recent all-male Romeo and Juliet, or Some Explicit Polaroids for example both drove me to find the teacher involved to express my dismay at the lack of any contol over the loud and supposedly funny comments such as "oh no! Hes going to take his clothes off! How gross! Ewwwwwwww!!"

The tutor in charge of the posh girls from Blackpool (sounds like a contradiction in terms I know) merely shrugged his shoulders, but  became a little more concerned when two other theatregoers brought the Grand Theatre manager over who promised to launch a complaint with the school!  

[Matthew Winn]

6) Too many theatres encourage eating sweets etc. as part of the experience because they have to look to profits. This means that the performance becomes secondary to eating.

In general I don't mind sweets so long as they're not in rustly packets or individually wrapped, and so long as the eaters know where their sweets are before the show starts rather than having to search for them in the dark. Though why people can't go for an hour without munching on something I don't know.

Worse than sweets are crisps. I'd love to know which idiot it was who thought "What food would be appropriate for the near-silence of the theatre? Ah, I know: crisps!" I must find this person, and I must hurt him.

Few foods, however, have quite the distracting effect of a box of Maltesers dropped at the rear of a raked auditorium, and I defy anyone to concentrate on a performance while listening to the dings and clunks of several dozen sweets haphazardly making their way down to the stage. (This is one of those situations where something that might be annoying is actually irresistibly funny.)

[Cake]

I work FoH at a West End Musical. Teenage school parties are the worst, the majority of them are noisy and rude. Obviously there are individuals in a group who are well-behaved but most of them are inconsiderate to those around them. Do tell theatre staff if you are distracted by anyone, preferably management or supervisors.

Saying that, I have found myself thinking some school parties are going to be trouble and they have been as good as gold. Some groups get so into what they are watching that they don't make any noise, get their phones out etc. A couple of weeks ago we had in a school party which was made up of very polite teenagers which was a lovely breath of fresh air!

I don't understand why so many people feel the need to get up during the performance and go to the toilet. It makes sense to go before it starts, and then wait until the interval. I know some people may have medical reasons but the amount of people who go to the toilet during the show is rediculous! Especially in the middle of a row. And when people run across the front row! So inconsiderate.

[xTanyax]

I think it all depends on the school and teachers, I know at my old school our drama teachers wouldn't tolerate people misbehaving. In my experience the fact that in the majority only drama students are being taken and they know how to behave as they know how it feels to have people messing around. I know one time a teacher of mine whilst at college made an example of someone, as he sat through a performance (by forced entertainment) with an ipod in his ear, by telling him he had to re do his monologue as it wasn't recorded properly she then sat there messing around throughout him doing it just to prove a point. I think it is the teachers responsibility to know whether their students can deal with a trip to the theatre.

I've had a couple of annoying experiences with school parties once at The Woman in Black when all the girls screamed stupidly throughout, and also at cabaret I was with my old school at the time and there were a couple of other school parties in which the girls giggled as soon as anyone was naked and then would talk about it for a while