Fights, vomiting and abuse: Theatregoers have forgotten how to behave, staff say
Front-of-house workers at leading West End theatres have told Sky News audiences have “forgotten how to behave” – claiming assaults and abuse are a common occurrence.
Agreeing to talk to us anonymously, we heard accounts of drunk audience members projectile vomiting in the auditorium, used condoms being found in the stalls, and ambulances being called to treat bleeding audience members after fights.
One theatre worker – who was fearful speaking out could cost him his job – said he was concerned that top management at some venues are putting “profit over safety”.
He told us how, despite a life-long love of theatre, his job has become intolerable after the COVID pandemic.
“I had a friend who is barely 5ft 2in punched in the face by a man who was 6ft 9in. She’s in her 20s.”
He said he was assaulted by a man who had arrived late and wouldn’t accept that he had to wait for an appropriate moment in the show to take his seat.
“I’d moved myself in front of the doors and he basically slammed me against the wall and then walked in, calling me a f****** w***** for doing my job… security pulled him out and he was made to apologise… but he was allowed to watch the show. I’ve just been assaulted and I’m shaken but that’s a common experience in the West End.”
As well as hearing countless examples of how audience members are routinely drunk and disrespectful, another worker even showed Sky News one theatre group’s internal incident reports.
Analysis:
Audiences behaving badly: An epidemic of anti-social behaviour
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Theatregoers thrown out as crowd boos
“We have to ask people to leave probably at least once a week,” they explained.
“There’s a huge amount of people that come to the theatre and it’s just a magical experience for them” we were told – “but there is this small minority of people that have forgotten how to behave”.
Workers told us how incidents are more frequent at jukebox musicals that clearly pitch their tickets at stag and hen dos – advertising “a raucous night out”.
“They bring in the crowds and the crowds spend money… there are offers at the bar and it’s money after a lockdown… we’ve got to do bag checks, ticket checks, get them to their seats before the show starts and they all want to go to the bar. I’ve had bar staff being shouted at… some horrible abuse goes on.”
London’s Shaftsbury Avenue
As an example of how little audience members seem to care, one theatre worker recounted: “I brought the person into the foyer and explained that we had received complaints about them being noisy, that they’d been vaping, to which they replied ‘So what?'”
Speaking to Sky News back in October, musical composer Stephen Schwartz – who has worked in theatre for over five decades on countless Broadway and West End hits from Godspell to Wicked – spoke of how mobile phones are becoming a real problem.
“What’s exasperating is the cell phones, people being on their phones and you want to say to them, you know, just go out in the lobby and text on your phone and let everybody else get on and watch the show!”
Read more:
Police called to ‘disturbance’ at Manchester Palace Theatre
Theatre slams abusive audience behaviour
Staff ‘fear for their safety’ after rise in anti-social behaviour
Composer Stephen Schwartz. Pic: AP
Theatre union BECTU recently surveyed its members about this. Some 90% of the 15,000 theatre staff who responded said they regularly witnessed bad behaviour – with half saying they were thinking about quitting as a result.
Head of BECTU, Philippa Childs, said some of the stories they heard were “quite incredible”.
“People being threatened with violence, people being told somebody would be waiting for them outside of the theatre at the end of the night… the results were really shocking and what we’ve been saying to theatres is that they need to take some action to make sure their staff are protected.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Audience members kicked out of theatre
While Ms Childs says it’s understandable that theatres want to make up for the earnings they lost during COVID lockdowns, she wants to “make sure theatres aren’t encouraging people to arrive tanked-up”.
She adds: “Theatres were the last to open so it’s inevitable that they want to try to claw back some of that lost revenue by selling more alcohol, but I think that is a contributing factor.”
None of the theatre owners Sky News approached wanted to comment for this piece.
Entertainment
Gary Lineker says ‘right time’ to leave Match Of The Day as he hints of changes to show’s format
Gary Lineker has said it is “the right time” to leave Match Of The Day and hinted the BBC could change the format of the Premier League highlights show.
The 63-year-old will step down as host at the end of the season and described his time on the show as an “absolute joy and privilege”.
Speaking on his podcast, The Rest Is Football, he said: “It has been an absolute joy and privilege to present such an iconic show for the BBC.
“But all things have to come to an end.”
Lineker went on to say the broadcaster enters a new three-year deal to host top-flight highlights, and that to stay on for another 12 months “would be a bit weird”.
“I think the next contract they’re looking to do Match Of The Day slightly differently, so I think it makes sense for someone else to take the helm.
“I bowed out in my football career when I felt it was the right time. I feel this is now the right time.”
Lineker refused to speculate who would be taking his place, as rumours grew around Mark Chapman, the regular Match Of The Day 2 presenter, Football Focus host Alex Scott, and BBC sports coverage presenter Gabby Logan.
👉 Listen to Sky News Daily on your podcast app 👈
“Obviously I don’t know who it’ll be, and I would never tell publicly my preference, I don’t think that’d be the right thing to do – but whoever it is, I would say be yourself,” he said.
“I had to fill the ginormous shoes of certain Des Lynam.
“…I would say just be yourself and enjoy it, it’s a wonderful programme to be a part of. It was brilliant before I took over, and it will be brilliant after I leave.”
Lineker pictured with former MOTD host Des Lynam in 2009. Pic: PA
Lineker has hosted Match Of The Day since 1999 and will have presented the show for more than a quarter of a century when he leaves in May 2025.
Read more:
Girl killed on M5 getting out of police car named
Vaccine sceptic chosen as Trump’s health secretary
He will continue with the MOTD Top Ten podcast alongside his podcast, which also features BBC pundits Alan Shearer and Micah Richards.
The former England striker has been the BBC’s highest-paid on-air talent for seven consecutive years and was estimated to have earned £1.35m in the year 2023/24.
The BBC said future plans for Match Of The Day would be “announced in due course”.
Coach tickets to Glastonbury 2025 were sold out in half an hour, organisers have said, as they roll out a new booking system for festivalgoers.
They were the first group of tickets to be sold for the world-famous festival in Somerset, which is set to take place between 25 and 29 June.
This year, fans navigated a new system to buy the tickets as they were “randomly assigned a place in a queue” instead of having to refresh the holding page once they went live.
The organisers said in a post on X: “The Glastonbury 2025 tickets + coach travel which were on sale this evening have now all been sold.
“Our thanks to everyone who bought one.”
They added that National Express services would be available to bring festivalgoers from across the country to Glastonbury.
Read more from Sky News:
Why is assisted dying so controversial?
Argentina walks out of COP29 climate summit
Standard tickets will go on sale on Sunday at 9am. Last year they were sold out within an hour.
See Tickets said in a post on X that “confirmation emails are going out now to everyone who got @Glastonbury coach tickets this evening”.
Tickets for the annual event at Worthy Farm in Somerset cost £373.50 plus a £5 booking fee, and are sold exclusively through the See Tickets website, with no third-party sellers involved.
The new ticket system has changed the way people join the booking system.
Organisers previously warned hopefuls to log in “at least a few minutes” before the sale opened today and to avoid refreshing the page.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Festivalgoers were also told not to attempt to game the system by using multiple devices.
The sale follows chaos earlier this year when tickets for the Oasis reunion went on sale, seeing a multitude of disappointed fans as well as those who felt cheated after being charged hundreds of pounds more for their tickets than was originally advertised.
Anyone wishing to buy tickets for Glastonbury must have registered by 11 November, a rule in place to avoid touting.
Entertainment
Christmas adverts – the 10 most-anticipated ads as the festive battle for customers commences
With just under six weeks to go to Christmas Day, the countdown has officially begun, with all the big brands rolling out their seasonal adverts.
Becoming something of an institution over recent years, many see the festive ads as the starting pistol for their Christmas preparation/panic, despite us only being halfway through November.
And with an estimated £10.5bn spent on this year’s Xmas ads, it’s not just about inducing a fuzzy warm feeling in viewers, but also about encouraging them to put their hand in their pocket.
As we brace ourselves for festive fun, we take a swift look at this year’s bevvy of commercial offerings, as the annual battle of the Christmas adverts begins.
John Lewis
A girl called Sally falls into a clothes rack reminiscent of CS Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, but instead of finding Narnia, she ends up in John Lewis.
Pic: PA
Through family flashbacks we lean how much she loves her older sister, whose gift she has carelessly left it to the last minute to buy. Spoiler alert – as one would expect in an advert for a retailer, she finds a pressie.
With the retailer famous for its use of cover versions in their Christmas ads, this one is the origin story for a new cover, with a concurrent competition on TikTok to find an aspiring artist to rerecord a version, which will be featured on the Christmas Day airing and released by record label BMG too.
Waitrose
Marketed as a whodunnit – this big-budget production has a host of celebrity cameos, an intricate storyline and not one but two parts.
Pic: Waitrose
Comedian Joe Wilkinson, Fleabag star Sian Clifford and Succession’s Matthew Macfadyen all have a role in the ensemble, revolving around hunting down the thief of a “chilled desert”.
Being Christmas, when tensions are traditionally high, everyone has reason to have scoffed it. The culprit won’t be revealed until the second part of the ad is released, but in the meantime, activity at Kings Cross Station, in stores and on social media is set to keep the investigation very much alive.
Sainsbury’s
Sainsbury’s goes big for its advert, calling on a beloved Roald Dahl character – the BFG, or Big Friendly Giant – to travel the country with a supermarket worker called Sophie (who pleasingly is a real store employee) in the search for the perfect festive treats.
Pic: Sainsbury’s
A CGI BFG procures salmon, sprouts and cheese before a bit of magic helps him whip it all up into a feast, which he then gifts to an unsuspecting family through the window.
The first ones to release their ad earlier this month, the dulcet tones of national treasure Stephen Fry wrap the action, with a call to arms to stock up in readiness for Christmas.
M&S
Another national treasure – Dawn French – is back for this one, playing both herself and a festive fairy, who gives both French and her home a make-over ready for a Christmas soiree.
Pic: PA
French, whose multi-Christmas-dinner eating antics on The Vicar Of Dibley put her into the Xmas annals, is transformed into “the quintessential hostess” with a bit of help from her little friend.
Banking on the idea that you can never have enough of a good thing, there are six instalments of the advert running between now and the New Year. Who doesn’t like a second – or sixth – helping.
Lidl
This one pulls on the heartstrings, with a little girl inspired to give a gift to a boy who appears not to have any, after an old lady gives her some magic bells.
Pic: Lidl
Directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Tom Hooper (he directed The King’s Speech), a CGI racoon and giant gingerbread man add a little action to events around the dinner table.
But the take home message is to think about giving as well as receiving, with the return of the retailer’s toy banks scheme set up at supermarkets with the aim of donating over 100,000 toys, to ensure no child experiences a giftless Christmas.
Aldi
Kevin the Carrot is back for a ninth year running, this time trying to save the Christmas spirit from a bunch of hard-boiled humbug villains.
Pic: Aldi
With the ad narrated by actor Jim Broadbent, our plucky hero braves an oven, a Mission Impossible-inspired ventilation system and Bond-esque snow jet-ski dash across the mountains, all to save Christmas.
Helped by his wife Katie, he of course pulls it off. A fan favourite, soft toys of the root vegetable are sold in stores, and this year cuddly humbugs are on sale too.
Morrisons
It’s a song and dance number from Morrisons, courtesy of their singing oven gloves performing Bugsy Malone’s You Give A Little Love.
Pic: Morrisons
A choir of 26 Morrisons employees gave voice to the gloves, recording their rendition of the song at the iconic Abbey Road Studios in London.
Like Lidl, the retailer pulled out the directing big guns, hiring The Greatest Showman director Michael Gracey to oversee proceedings.
Asda
Bagging the prize for the most gnome puns in one advert, Asda sees a flash mob of gnomes preparing the store for Christmas.
Pic: Asda
The resulting advert isn’t as irritating as it sounds on paper, thanks to nice performances by the two human characters in the ad – Maggie and Bill.
And as we know, Christmas is all about the merchandise, so the supermarkets are of course selling special Xmas versions of their garden gnomes to accompany their already 50-strong gnome range. Who knew?
Tesco
Tesco reminds us of those members of the family who are no longer here to join us on the big day, with a man carrying on his late grandmother’s festive tradition of baking gingerbread.
Pic: Tesco
He becomes obsessed with the spicy treat, as it infiltrates every part of his day from his haircut to a trip to see the Christmas lights.
He eventually gets together with his grandad to bake a gingerbread house, revealing it to the family at lunch, thus keeping the tradition alive.
Greggs
And in the most unlikely festive cameo of the year, Greggs has enlisted Nigella Lawson to star in its first Christmas ad.
Pic: PA
Rapturously endorsing their festive bakes, Lawson has her hands full of pasties, and her table full of take-away coffees, as she promotes the bakery’s festive-themed fare.
Whether or not you believe the 64-year-old TV chef really tucks into their sausage rolls in real life – the attention-grabbing collaboration looks like a wise move for the chain, whose sales have jumped in recent weeks as it continues its UK expansion.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports7 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Environment1 year agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway