‘Insulting’: British star rips into theatre audiences over phone etiquette

London: It is a moment for theatre actors to bask in the adulation of their audiences, but are digital-obsessed audiences bringing down the curtain on the final bow?

Lesley Manville, the award-winning actor, has urged London theatregoers to put down their phones as the cast takes its final bows, claiming that the filming is an insult to the performers on stage.

The British star, 70, who is appearing in Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the National Theatre, spoke out amid growing concerns about the decline of etiquette in the West End.

She said: “Come on, it’s theatre, let’s preserve it. Let’s take the digital out of it for just a moment.

“We are all in this room, we are telling you a story, you’re listening – clap or don’t clap, but don’t just stick your phone in our face. I find it insulting.”

The trend of filming curtain calls has grown in recent years as modern musicals stage elaborately produced bows and encourage audiences to record them in the hope of going viral on social media.

One such production is Six the Musical, which details the lives of Henry VIII’s wives as though they were a pop group. In their closing number, the character of Anne of Cleves sings: “Get your phones out, you’re gonna wanna film this.”

Interviewed on Radio 4, Manville, who won a 2025 Olivier Award for her role in Oedipus at Wyndham’s Theatre in London, said audience members taking out their phones “never used to happen”, but warned that the practice was spreading to London, having already taken over in New York.

“I’ve just come back from Broadway,” she explained. “Virtually the whole audience will take their phones out at the end of the evening. Why can’t they let it live in their souls for five minutes?” she said.

“People need to take a photo of the curtain call to prove they’ve seen it. You don’t have that so much in the UK, but it’s starting to filter in.”

Phones have become a bête noire for actors treading the boards in the West End and Broadway.

In the early 2000s, Richard Griffiths, when starring in The History Boys, demanded that a succession of audience members leave performances in both London and New York after their phones rang.

In 2009, Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig paused the play A Steady Rain to remind a theatregoer to obey the proper phone etiquette.

While older technology brought the issue of loud ringtones, smartphones have created a new problem as audience members attempt to record during the show and upload bootlegs online.

There are also concerns about a broader degradation of standards beyond the technological.

One gripe is the over-generous, and increasingly automatic, offering of standing ovations by modern audiences.

William Hanson, an etiquette coach and director of training company The English Manner, said previously: “Standing ovations are a bit like swearing – the more you do it, the less weight it carries.

“Today, people will stand up for anything. Even mediocre to poor performances get at least some of the audience rising to their feet in a mid-Atlantic frenzy.”

Another behaviour that has become problematic for theatres, and musicals in particular, is drink-fuelled rowdiness.

In 2023, a performance of The Bodyguard in Manchester developed into a “mini-riot” as two women were dragged from the auditorium by security after singing over the music.

The same year, police had to eject four ticket-holders from Grease The Musical in the West End, with some voicing concerns that shows are becoming centrepieces for drunken nights out.