Audience Behaviour

[Picturesinthefirelight]

Oops

 

I miss those days.

[bangorballetboy]

Mind you the worst behaviour I witnessed was from a certain soprano who was giving a recital. She wouldn't let any of us stewards into the hall to do our safety/cleanliness checks as she was rehearsing late so we were rushed & late letting patrons in. She started moaning at the accompanist during the piano introduction. It was as if she felt the music wasn't important if she wasn't actually singing at that point.

 

She was certainly a bit of a 'battle' axe that night.

 

Subtle as a sledgehammer!

[Picturesinthefirelight]

My friend was page turning for the accompanist & said she was awful to him.

[Fonty]

How rude.

 

Everyone should have burst out in a fit of loud hacking coughs as she opened her mouth. 

[Jacqueline]

Following on from my query about queueing and holding the ladies lav door open at the ROH, I have just read about an experiment at an American university in which passers by were randomly assigned to having a door opened for them or not, to see how they would react.     

Psychologists found that men don't like having a door held open for them, particularly by another man, because it lowers their feelings of self-esteem and self-belief. They feel deflated because they take the polite gesture to mean they are less masculine. Huh?

No difference was reported with women, whether the door was held open or not. 

The researchers concluded: These results demonstrate negative consequences of seemingly innocuous but unexpected helping behaviour that violates gender norms

Who would have thought it? 

Try doing that experiment over here!

[Anjuli_Bai]

this is my formal notice to the world.......

 

If you are so kind as to hold a door  open for me - be you man, woman or child - I will be most appreciative.

 

This notice is not meant for teens - who are usually unaware of my presence in their world.

[Fonty]

I did read about that test, and thought it was weird. 

 

My husband assures me that real men don't mind having doors held open for them. 

[Jan McNulty]

An interesting blog post in The Guardian

 

It's an interesting concept that maybe the theatre is to blame (when children are disruptive) but the writer also asks if children should be taught theatre etiquette.

[Melody]

I think it's sad that they should even be asking whether children should be taught theatre etiquette. Of course they should be. Kids need to be taught the norms of behaviour in different situations (heck, here's me thinking that this is part of the whole growing-up experience), and a crowded theatre is one of them. If "etiquette" sounds like too elitist a concept these days, it can be presented as simple consideration for others with an appeal to the golden rule: "even if you're bored, you don't want to spoil it for other people, just as you wouldn't want a bored person spoiling something you find interesting." I don't know when it became received wisdom that spending a bit of time feeling bored is totally unacceptable for children. It's part of life, and they need to learn to deal with it sooner or later. We're living in an increasingly overcrowded world, and people need to learn, as young as possible, how to get along.

 

I don't think the theatre is necessarily to blame unless it's deliberately marketing something to children that's patently unsuitable for them. I think a lot of times it's the fault of the accompanying adults who want to see something and either think their little angel will be interested when s/he obviously isn't, or just doesn't want the hassle of paying a babysitter or whatever, and drag the kids along to a piece of entertainment that's too long and aimed at an adult audience. Somehow parents seem to be able to sit through the worst sort of behaviour of their own children without it even registering, and will then blame others who object (having been on the receiving end of that one more than a few times, I still marvel at how things have changed in the couple of hundred years since I was a kid).

 

I think it's also a little sad that things have got to the point where they have to be dumbed-down to appeal to children - that they have to be interactive, they have to appeal to a short attention span, they have to be immediately attractive, etc. I suppose it's the influence of advertising, but really, it's almost insulting to the intelligence of young people that they're not perceived as being able to handle something a bit challenging.

Edited February 23, 2014 by Melody

[aileen]

The performance was given at a school. Even so, there are norms of behaviour at school and I'm surprised that the teachers (who could easily remove disruptive children to another part of the school) allowed the children to misbehave, if that is what they were doing. It makes me wonder whether the play was unsuitable for its target audience (I imagine that they were primary school children).

[Fonty]

It doesn't give the children's ages.  However, I find it astonished that one of the possible reasons given was that they were on their own territory.  Er - no, they were in school.  Presumably they are expected to be quiet during "boring" lessons, so why didn't the teachers step in and impose some discipline? 

 

I would love to ring up the school and ask a few questions.  If the entire audience was behaving badly, then it might have been something in the play that set them off, but presumably some preparation work was done in class beforehand.  Also, The Shrew is one of Shakespeare's lighter plays.  Not as if they are being asked to sit through nearly 4 hours of Hamlet, where even I have been known to get the fidgets some times!

 

On the other hand, it could have been a case of a hard core of well known trouble makers, preventing the others from watching.  Either way, if I was a parent, I would be having second thoughts about sending my child there. 

[mimi66]

Sometimes I feel that may be a lot of adults who bring children theatre are unaware of the basic etiquettes... They seem to think (or worse, expect!) they can behave as if they are watchin the TV together at home.

 

Once at the ROH matinee, I happened to sit in front of a young girl - around 6?- with her grandmother.  Once the ballet started, the girl kept asking questions to her grandmother, and the grandmother kept answering her questions!!

 

We were prepared for a little bit of "commotion", as it was a matinee (the programme was Cinderella) but it was very annoying, and went on all the way during the first Act.

 

Once the curtain fell for the first intermission, I turned around and asked the gril if she was a little ballerina.  She said yes. 

 

I asked her (nicely) if she would liked to try and see if she was able to behave like a professional bellerina and refain from speaking during the performance, just like these ballerinas up on the stage.

 

It worked!  She didn't make any noise during the rest of the performance.  I just wished that her mother or grandmother thought of telling that girl the similar thing before setting off to ROH. 

[Anon2]

We used to attend most of the ROH school matinees and with every confirmation email there were instructions for the teachers about how to manage their charges during the performance and how to prepare them for what to expect during each show. For example, sitting individually  within their group and not at ends of rows in gaggles of teachers, where to have lunch before hand, not allowing charges to wander around unsupervised.  We came to the conclusion the majority of teachers just decided to ignore the instructions, have a 'jolly' out of school and keep the ROH staff on their toes - we always felt it was an honour to be able to attend the matinees but think it is lost on some of the audience.

 

There were of course also schools were everyone was well behaved and appreciative of the ballet/opera but as always it is the bad that sticks in your mind. 

[AnneMarriott]

I can't remember if this has come up before in this thread and am too lazy to check, but I do remember being irritated by the over-enthusiastic and pretty well continuous whooping and yelling from a group of secondary school students standing in the Yard during  the Winter's Tale at the Globe one sunny afternoon.  It seemed out of all proportion to the action or the dialogue.  In the interval the girls from the group were all gathered in the ladies' loo.  One asked her friend what she thought of it so far.  "Bit boring" was the reply.  What the hell was all the whooping and yelling about then?  They were also extremely fidgety, as I recall, constantly checking mobile phones, fiddling with hairstyles and generally being a right pain.  There were teachers present but they were all seated in the Lower Gallery.  Odd arrangement. 

[chrischris]

Interesting comments. People might be interested in this article about children and their behaviour in museums.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/museums/10644502/Should-children-be-banned-from-museums.html

[Fonty]

I have been with groups of primary school children to special school matinee performances of ballets, and by and large I have to say that all the children in the audience have been well behaved.  Yes, perhaps the noise beforehand is a bit more raucous than normal, and yes, perhaps the noise does continue for a bit longer after the curtain has gone up. 

 

But I never saw any bad behaviour once it was underway.  And the dancers at the end were greeted with thunderous applause.

 

Please don't get me started on the topic of children and museums!  I think I did a rather long Rant in the appropriate thread on this very topic i.e. that museums are starting to create displays that seem to indicate that the average age of the visitor is under 6. 

[Coated]

Dear amply shaped Elderly Men and imaginary 40+ Captain of the Universes: please re-align your personal perception of your body shape with the actual space you're taking up these days. Perhaps you were slender in your youth, but those days are long, long gone.

 

I'm sure I insult some of your sensitivities by being a rather round female. I can see your little thought process of 'oh, she better not encroach on my space'. The thing you don't seem to understand is that I actually paid for the area delimited by my seat, which includes my side of the arm rest and the space above it. Yes, the side of my seat is not there for you to place your shoulders and arms, its where I'm sitting. Once I fold myself up, that's pretty much the space I take up, and strangely I do not have any issues sitting next to larger people equally folded up or medium sized people sitting reasonable comfortably (note: my side of the arm rest is still not available for your use even if you're as slim as they come. But I don't mind your elbow in my ribcage too much if you don't constantly jiggle it).

 

I swear, the next guy whose elbow is practically on my navel will experience what happens when I stop playing nice.

 

What I find utterly bizarre is that the average chubby male under 40 seems to be able to sit with his arms crossed. Is this something that males have only learned in recent history?

[taxi4ballet]

What I find utterly bizarre is that the average chubby male under 40 seems to be able to sit with his arms crossed. Is this something that males have only learned in recent history?

 

Arms crossed, but legs akimbo 

[bloomsbury]

Re the loos on the ground floor of ROH - it drives me absolutely potty when everyone queues for one door only. The only way the loos can cope with short time and number of those using them during intervals is if there are two queues - one for each door - one for each side of loos. The doors are big enough for a queue and someone exiting without any trouble. I don't ever use them if there is one long queue and no one at the other door - can't bear the patronising tutting. Nights when more regulars seem to be there we all just form two queues and get through much quicker.   

[MargaretN7]

Driven potty queuing for the loo?  Hmmm! Those two doors used to be marked entrance and exit, and one queue outside splitting to two inside, depending on availability. seems a fair way to me.

And it's better than the slow queue that went all the way round the stalls circle, or all the way down the stairs, for the meagre supply in the old house.

[Jacqueline]

Driven potty queuing for the loo?  Hmmm! Those two doors used to be marked entrance and exit, and one queue outside splitting to two inside, depending on availability. seems a fair way to me.

And it's better than the slow queue that went all the way round the stalls circle, or all the way down the stairs, for the meagre supply in the old house.

Hmmm! indeed, haha! 

Having brought this subject up previously, it makes more sense now you say the doors used to be marked entrance and exit. I gather the loos in the amphitheatre level are still marked thus. It would certainly ease confusion if the ground floor doors were still marked. I wonder why they are not now? 

There is no need for any of this saga really. All the ROH need do is either re-instate the signs or have a steward in place to inform the ladies that they can access the facilities via either door. 

[bloomsbury]

Apologies for the potty/loo conjunction - haha hmm indeed - unintended ! Agree facilities are very much better (however long the queue/s) than in the older days . . .

[zxDaveM]

Apologies for the potty/loo conjunction - haha hmm indeed - unintended ! Agree facilities are very much better (however long the queue/s) than in the older days . . .

 

You ladies will have to start drinking halves, instead of pints!!   ;-)

[GTL]

If only it were that uncomplicated!

[Anjuli_Bai]

You ladies will have to start drinking halves, instead of pints!!   ;-)

 

Dave, Dave, Dave....women use the "facility" to comb their hair,  naught else.  Silly man.

[alison]

The queue is for the mirrors

[LinMM]

And refreshing lipstick one doesn't usually wear! (Slightly nerve wracking in public......especially at the ROH!

[Jacqueline]

There is an old sketch (Monty Python?) where people are standing in a long, slow moving queue leading to a door. When they reach the door and go through, they find themselves in another long queue, leading to another door. When they go through the second door, they find themselves at the back of the first queue they were in. Possibly funnier in action than to read about! 

Moving along, or not, given the subject, I have just seen a clip of the new Jonathan Creek which is on tonight, in which he is in a theatre and having difficulty with the man sitting next to him who is filming the performance on some device or other. As this is a common bone of contention, I will be interested to see how he deals with the problem.

[Jan McNulty]

Thanks for that tip-off re Jonathan Creek Jacqueline.  I will have to catch up later as I am seeing the wonderful Propeller Theatre again tonight.

[Fonty]

There is an old sketch (Monty Python?) where people are standing in a long, slow moving queue leading to a door. When they reach the door and go through, they find themselves in another long queue, leading to another door. When they go through the second door, they find themselves at the back of the first queue they were in. Possibly funnier in action than to read about! 

 

 

 

I don't remember that one, but I do remember Not The 9 O'Clock News doing several queue sketches of various sorts, including the one where men are standing in line waiting for a phone box.  They don’t want to make a phone call, either!  I think the only answer is to have a female equivalent of the Gents' urinals.  Or use the Gents. 

 

Talking about toilets, I went to the Wyndham Theatre this week, and my friend and I decided to splash out on one of boxes for 2 people.  We had a good view of all but the extreme corner of the stage, and best of all, we had our own loo which we only shared with the other 2 person box on that side of the stage.   

 

So I decided this was too good an opportunity to miss, and went along to use it.  It was wonderful, with lovely smart striped wallpaper, scented soap, posh hand cream, the lot. However, somebody kept rattling the door handle.  Now, if there is one thing I hate, it is somebody rattling the door handle while I am in the loo, especially if I have only just closed the door.  Does the person outside think I am going to go any faster if they do that?   

 

So I made quite sure that my hair was perfectly combed, my makeup immaculate, and that hand cream thoroughly rubbed in before I opened the door.  And then I gave the two people from the box next door a charming smile as they stood there looking boot faced.  Childish, I know, but on this occasion I think they deserved it. 

[alison]

I will have to catch up later as I am seeing the wonderful Propeller Theatre again tonight.

Lucky you. What are they doing this time? 

 

So I decided this was too good an opportunity to miss, and went along to use it.  It was wonderful, with lovely smart striped wallpaper, scented soap, posh hand cream, the lot. However, somebody kept rattling the door handle.  Now, if there is one thing I hate, it is somebody rattling the door handle while I am in the loo, especially if I have only just closed the door.  Does the person outside think I am going to go any faster if they do that?   

 

So I made quite sure that my hair was perfectly combed, my makeup immaculate, and that hand cream thoroughly rubbed in before I opened the door.  And then I gave the two people from the box next door a charming smile as they stood there looking boot faced.  Childish, I know, but on this occasion I think they deserved it.

Sounds like it to me

 

I am in a set of offices where we all share one loo. You'd be surprised how often someone walks straight up and turns the door handle when I'm in there. Fortunately I always make sure the door's locked, but if you see the loo door is closed wouldn't you just - I don't know - maybe knock first before trying to barge in? Just in case?

[Jan McNulty]

Midsummers last night and Comedy of Errors tonight. Bliss!!!

[simonbfisher]

There is an old sketch (Monty Python?) where people are standing in a long, slow moving queue leading to a door. When they reach the door and go through, they find themselves in another long queue, leading to another door. When they go through the second door, they find themselves at the back of the first queue they were in. 

 

I don't remember this from Monty P, but it sounds JUST like trying to renew my Indian visa at the Office for Foreign Affairs in Delhi a couple of years ago ...... It went on for hours and hours ......