Theatregoers behaving badly

What’s it like to star in a  show when audiences are chatting, singing, watching football and opening lagers? Actors vent their anger at the ‘Netflix mindset’

-  Tom Ambrose

Punch-ups in the stalls. Drunken audience members singing and shouting over songs. Theatregoers filming performances – or just watching something on their phones instead. These are just some of the examples of bad behaviour recently reported in theatres. What on earth is it like for actors to contend with such unruliness?

“I was in Dreamgirls and there would be fights in the audience,” recalls the West End actor Marisha Wallace. “It was wild. It happened so often they had to get more security … It’s distracting when you’re trying to sing, act and dance. ”

For Wallace, the Dreamgirls experience is a contrast to how audiences are responding to her current show, Guys and Dolls, at London’s Bridge theatre. It’s an immersive promenade production where some of the theatregoers crowd around a series of moving stages. “It’s interesting that the subject of audience behaviour has come up when I’m in a show where I am literally in the audience,” she says. “We have amazing stage managers and hosts who are dressed as New York City cops and they police the crowd. The audience feel like they’re a part of the show when they are that close to you.” The effect, she adds, is that “they feel like they need to behave because they want the show to go on”.