Stephen Mangan has revealed how he kicked an audience member’s feet off the stage during a performance.
The British actor, who is returning to the West End for The Truth, recalled one shocking instance of poor etiquette at a show.
His comments come not long after Rosamund Pike called out an audience member during her own play, Inter Alia, for texting.
Asked whether people’s behaviour in theatres had grown worse, he told The Times: ‘You sometimes feel as if the audience don’t appreciate that they’re in the same room.
‘If they pull out a phone and start texting, we’re right there. We can see it. If they lean over and whisper something to their friend, we can hear it.’
Discussing a play he did on Broadway, the Norman Conquests, in 2009 Stephen said that one audience member in the front row put their two feet on the stage.
‘You wouldn’t walk into your accountant’s office and stick your feet on his desk,’ The Fortune Hotel star said.
‘Anyway, I kicked the feet off the stage. That was the end of that.’
Stephen’s upcoming play The Truth is written by Florian Zeller and is a comedy about two unfaithful couples, in which he stars opposite Janie Dee, Sarah Hadland and Ardal O’Hanlon.
However, there has been an emerging debate about badly behaved audience members in recent months.
Discussing her performance in Inter Alia, Rosamund claimed that texter had ‘broken the bond’ between the cast and audience.
She also said that it’s ‘hard’ for actors to continue with their performances after they notice somebody who isn’t paying attention.
Speaking to The Times, one audience member said: ‘She suggested that someone texting in the climax of this devastatingly emotional play broke this bond. She seemed genuinely upset.’
The source also added that everybody was ‘a bit stunned’ and felt as though ‘we had all let her down’.
Earlier this month, the Royal Shakespeare Company asked a woman to leave a performance after her baby repeatedly interrupted the production.
Theatregoers at the play complained about the disruption after hearing ‘gurgling and cooing and chirping very loudly throughout’.