'It’s come to my attention that standards are slipping': Sophia Money-Coutts on how to behave at the theatre

It’s come to my attention that standards are slipping. At a performance in the West End recently, halfway through the third act, I noticed a commotion a few rows in front of me. A woman was vaping, sending thick clouds of smoke into the air, and the people behind her were flapping their hands to dispense her exhalations so they could see the stage.

An usher hissed from the sidelines, but she continued. The performance was subsequently stopped when it became apparent that this woman was very drunk, head lolling around like a water balloon on a stick, and another usher and a security guard appeared at the end of the row to hustle her out.

Only a week before, I was watching another production when I felt the surprising and unpleasant sensation of popcorn cascading down my back. Certain theatres now flog big buckets of the stuff, just like in the cinema, and the man behind me had tipped his over. Accidentally, of course, but still. You don’t get that sort of behaviour at the Royal Opera House, do you? Meanwhile, a friend reports that she was recently distracted from a play by a nearby woman who’d darted to a branch of McDonald’s during the interval and sat through the second half chomping it.

It’s a tricky one because, these days, theatre often gets it in the neck for being elitist and stuffy. For being too white and too middle class. For not being inviting or encouraging enough to those who might be intimidated by it. And yet, I’m not sure that it needs to be so egalitarian that people feel relaxed enough to eat a box of chicken nuggets during a performance of Othello.

Dress codes don’t bother me hugely. My grandmother, a keen theatre goer, would have been horrified by the idea of someone going to the National in, say, trainers. But times change, some performances are very long, so go in what you’re comfortable in. It doesn’t need to be black tie, although bear in mind that in certain, extremely cramped West End theatres you may be quite close to a stranger. And do you want to brush bare arms with a stranger? Exactly.

But eating. Hmmm. I’m going to be sterner here and say ideally not during the performance. An ice-cream at the interval, fine. Splendid, in fact. I’ll have a salted caramel. Drinking is allowed, so long as you don’t have cubes of ice noisily clinking around your glass like it’s a cocktail party. But bags of sweets and chocolate that rustle can be very trying for others, as can showers of popcorn. And really, really, nothing that’s going to stink out those around you either. If you’re craving a Big Mac, have one before or afterwards.

A final word on phones. Do you need to send that email halfway through a scene? My other half whispered crossly at a woman who was tapping away at her phone throughout The Lehman Trilogy, only for the woman to reply: ‘Go f**k yourself.’ Why bother spending £60 or more on a ticket to see something, only to sit and scroll? You can do that in your bedroom. During a bad performance of something, I’m often desperate to know the time so I can work out how long is left and when I can get home to bed. But I still wouldn’t get my phone out. If you want to know the time that badly, consider a watch.