David Tennant’s play was stopped because of an angry audience member – but there are worse examples than that

Buckets of KFC being passed around, vomit and mobile phones – us actors know all too well the pain of a badly behaved audience, writes Andrea Lowe

“I’ll fight till, from my bones, my flesh be hacked. Give me my armour...”

This is what I found myself thinking about after the pause in the play Macbeth, this week, at the Harold Pinter Theatre, when David Tennant was asked to leave the stage because of disruption in the stands. “Show stops” like this are called by stage management and usually only occur when someone might be in danger. In this case, it was because an audience member, who had left to use the bathroom, was prevented from immediately returning to his seat. On being told he would need to wait for a break in the play, the man allegedly objected, became disruptive – and the performance was halted for 15 minutes.

I understand how Tennant and the rest of the cast must have felt as the disruption continued and theatre staff raised the house lights. In the last play I performed in at the National Theatre, we had a few of these because there was some graphic content around sexual abuse – despite trigger warnings, some members of the audience had a big reaction. A few members fainted and they were panic attacks.

And, in a recent production of the new play The Years, show stops seemed to happen on a daily basis due to a graphic abortion scene – and I get it. No matter how frustrating it can be for the cast, it is vital that audience members are taken care of and the play, as the old adage mandates, goes on... when it’s appropriate. A disgruntled toilet request, however, doesn’t really seem to fit the bill.

So: to continue or not to continue, that is the real question. Or, to put it more succinctly: must the show always go on? It’s difficult to say, given this interruption is just the latest in a recent line of unexpected (and unpleasant) audience behaviours – Andrew Scott revealed in January that he once stopped a play because of someone sending emails.

The actor, who was cast in the title role in Robert Icke’s production of Hamlet, was forced to pause his delivery of (arguably) the most famous soliloquy in history – “To be or not to be” – after noticing an audience member using his laptop. If this can happen to the formidable Scott, what hope do the rest of us have?

I know all too well the pain of a badly behaved audience. Food, phones and drink seem to be the biggest culprits for disrupting a production. A friend reminded me recently of a time when she was on stage in the West End, about to embark on a monologue, but could smell something really pungent. She looked down and the whole front row had huge buckets of KFC they were passing back and forth. As hideous (and also a little humorous) as this was for her, she carried on.

Another actor friend told me of an audience member so drunk that they vomited over the balcony into the stalls.

Women have to put up with so much more than men – I’ve heard of people masturbating in the audience and someone proposing to Keira Knightley from the seats.

I think audiences often presume that actors are almost superhuman and can block out anything. We can’t, of course – we just have to get used to it. Actors recognise that mobile phones aren’t going anywhere – so most of us have become more adept at tuning them out. Gone are the days when Al Pacino jumps into the audience and answers someone’s phone for them; or when Ralph Fiennes and Hugh Jackman break character to tell an audience member to answer their phone.

So, as we hear nightmarish stories of “riots” ending shows early and loud arguments over audience members singing along; with actual fights breaking out at theatres and ushers being verbally (and occasionally physically) assaulted, I have to ask whether it is time for mediation. But what should actors do when audiences aren’t behaving as we want them to?

If understanding motivation is important, then perhaps we should begin by asking whether audiences are behaving badly in the first place. Is there malice in it – or is it just human fallibility and thoughtlessness? Might our obsession with “theatre etiquette” turn much-needed audiences away? Or is distraction and a short attention span merely an expected by-product of the Netflix generation – a generation that thinks nothing of sharing intimate details of their sex lives or medical conditions with both their friends and the rest of the passengers on the 73 Routemaster?

For me, it is navigating the unpredictability of the audience that gives live performance such a thrill. It is terrifying, exhilarating and a massive dopamine hit when you get to the end of the show and you know the audience has been with you all the way. There is nothing like it – but when that connection between the cast and the audience is lost because of drama in the seats, it can be irritating, demoralising and (sometimes) even scary.

I remember being mortified, early on in my career, playing Lulu in Pinter’s Birthday Party at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield. My extended family were in and every time I came on stage, my nana stood up and said: “There she is, that’s my granddaughter!” I went around apologising to the rest of the cast afterwards – but the more experienced actors hadn’t even noticed the disruption. They were more focused on telling the story.

Rest assured: actors do love a good gossip about audiences behaving badly. But in “extreme” cases, I do think the responsibility lies with the theatre to control it.

After decades of doing the job on TV and on stage, I’ve learned that the best way to deal with a noisy group of theatregoers is to let go of what is going on in the audience. To try to stay neutral and to push “me” (and my feelings and reactions) out of the way because really, that isn’t my business. Bluntly, I have tried to train myself to butt out. Though I’ve never had anyone – yet – have an argument about the toilets...

Andrea Lowe’s work in theatre includes most recently ‘Dixon and Daughters’ by Deborah Bruce at The National Theatre; ‘Bash’ at the Citizens, Glasgow; ‘A Day in Dull Armour’ at the Royal Court; ‘The Birthday Party’ at the Sheffield Crucible; and ‘How the Other Half Loves’ in the West End. Her TV work includes ‘Mrs Sidhu Investigates’, ‘Without Sin’, ‘Sherwood’ and ‘DCI Banks’