Andrew Scott discusses halting Hamlet show after spotting audience member on laptop

Chatting recently with the Happy Sad Confused film podcast, WhatsOnStage and Olivier Award winner Andrew Scott brought up an experience in the West End production of Hamlet (seven years ago) where he waited for an audience member to put away their laptop before continuing.

During the production’s run at the Harold Pinter Theatre in 2017, Scott recollected “a guy took out his laptop – not his phone, his laptop – while I was in the middle of ‘To be or not to f**king be’”. Scott then paused mid-speech and waited until the man took a hint from a nearby punter and put his laptop away.

Scott continued: “I was pausing and [the stage managers] were like, ‘Get on with it’ and I was like, ‘There’s no way.’ I stopped for ages.”

The discussion comes following a spat of discussions around the presence of digital devices in auditoria, with the West End production of Six also putting out a statement regarding the audio and video filming of performances.

Scott was recent nominated for another WhatsOnStage Award for his performance in VANYA, running at the Duke of York’s Theatre last year and heading to cinemas early next.