On a Wednesday night, I was persuaded and dragged by my younger sister to check out the UK production of The Bodyguard, a jukebox musical (a musical comprising of already-existing songs, usually from a well-known artist) at the Edinburgh Playhouse. After we entered the foyer, I noticed a sign on the door asking the audience not to sing along with the cast. I laughed a little bit, wondering how anyone could think it was acceptable to sing while watching a theatre show. After all, this was my first jukebox musical, and little did I know what was to come.
After paying £7.20 for two plastic cups of Pepsi, we headed to our seats. As I was unwilling to pay £70 per seat, I bought one of the cheaper options located in the stalls near the back. As we seated ourselves, I was left holding my plastic cups full of Pepsi in my right hand- as there were no cup holders- and chatting with my sister. An older lady sitting next to me, who heard me speaking with my sister in a foreign language, approached me with a question: “You are not from this area, are you?” Well, I guess she was curious, and I did not mind answering her question and continuing the conversation for a bit.
Then (spoilers ahead), the show began. Unlike most musicals, which start with the music slowly getting quieter and the dimming of the lights, this beginning was quite startling. This show started with a loud ‘boom’ and strong light effects. Half of the audience jumped out of their seats. I found this effect creative. However, I thought it was badly timed as around 10% of the audience was not yet seated.
After the first singing number, people who came late were led into the audience — including two ladies in my row. While climbing through our seats to get to theirs, with the whole row standing, they realised they were not sitting next to each other. After seating themselves, one of the ladies lost her bag while getting to her seat and started looking for it with a phone flashlight. She did find it but kept the light on and covered it with her hand. The whole process was unorganised, and the behaviour was impolite. When the staff came to talk to her, she loudly argued with them, refusing to turn off her flashlight, although our whole row was lit better than the actors on stage.
During the interval, the ladies managed to find a seat together to my left. Towards the end of the show, I started hearing disruptive singing from my left side, and it lasted for the next four songs. As it got to the final number, two people in the audience close to me pulled out their phones and started filming. The staff quickly spotted them and pointed a flashlight at them, making the whole audience look at them. I found this disruptive and something I have not experienced before. The show was great, but the audience’s behaviour was not.
When going to a theatre, especially a well-respected one such as the Edinburgh Playhouse, you expect a well-behaved audience. Not even a month ago, it was reported that a fight broke out in the audience of the production of Jersey Boys, and the production had to be stopped, coincidentally also in the Edinburgh Playhouse. Is this a jukebox musical problem? Or a post-pandemic problem, where people forgot how to behave in the theatre? And should the laws of banning people from a venue be stricter?
The solution to this problem is complex. On the one hand, the theatre should try to be welcoming to all, but on the other, a theatre has a responsibility to create a safe and respectful environment for its audience members — and that includes removing disrespectful audience members. For now, I would much rather attend smaller productions.
Image ‘Theatre‘ by Jonathan Boeke is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.