Disruptive idiots are destroying theatre – they deserve to be berated

The dread curse of the mobile phone strikes the theatre again – and it has left Rosamund Pike exceedingly irate. Yet wouldn’t you too be more than somewhat narked if you had spent 100 interval-free minutes haring about on stage and giving your all as a barrister in a highly charged legal/moral drama, only to have the climax of the action ruined by the lit-up phone screen of a witless audience member sending texts?

If I, a mere spectator, were sitting near this disruptive idiot I’d be furious, so it’s hard to imagine the internal rage levels of Pike, who recently won both Olivier and Critics’ Circle Awards for her lead role in Suzie Miller’s drama Inter Alia. In a recent performance, Pike returned to the stage after the play ended and accused this unidentified texting viewer of breaking the all-important bond between actor and audience. Pike said that she had “given her all” to the performance and felt let down by the disturbance.

Bloody good for her, I say – and I adored her withering final comment that she hoped the person in question was a doctor who had just saved someone’s life. I hope the texter, who I could virtually guarantee is not a doctor (I have theatre-loving medical friends who would never dream of behaving in such a crass, not to mention deeply unprofessional, manner) will squirm with embarrassment for days, or ideally months, to come.

What is it with audience members spending good money – and let us remember that West End stalls tickets to hit shows such as Inter Alia do not come cheap – only to carry on with all their electronic communications once the play has started? It is as though such people feel that, as long as devices are not emitting actual noise, they have carte blanche to behave as they please. They remain stubbornly impervious to the idea that the field of light emitted from their phones is a huge distraction, destroying the collective suspension of disbelief that theatre requires.

It is immensely hard to allow oneself to be swept away by a story if the person sitting next to you is determinedly anchored in this world rather than the one of the play, scrolling news headlines and checking Facebook. Pike was absolutely right to talk about the breaking of an all-important bond, a precious bond that only live performance can offer. Lesley Manville recently lamented something similar, the scourge of audience members filming curtain calls rather than absorbing the moment and facing the actors without the intermediary of a screen.

A couple of weeks ago, I was at the opening night of Care at the Young Vic, a highly moving piece about old age and dementia. Even on this so-called “gala” evening, the man in front of me used his phone repeatedly throughout the two hours’ duration. Each stab of light from this damned device jolted me uncomfortably away from the care home with the woman who looked disconcertingly like my late mother; I toyed with remonstrating with him, but held back for fear that this would simply create further disturbance. I would have cheered had, come the curtain call, star Linda Bassett had made a comment akin to Pike’s. Sadly, it seems that the enforcement of basic rules of audience etiquette is now the job of the stars of the show. Long may they continue in this noble crusade.