Amber Davies has reignited the ongoing debate around theatre etiquette after asking an audience member to be removed from Legally Blonde for filming.
The former Love Island star and West End performer is currently starring as Elle Woods in the musical’s UK and Ireland tour, with the production setting up camp in Dublin’s Bord Gáis Energy Theatre last week for an 11-day run.
But during the interval in Saturday night’s show, Davies, 29, shared a video to Instagram Stories explaining that she’d requested a fan on the front row leave the theatre.
Wearing Elle’s trademark blonde wig, the Welsh actor told her followers: “This is your daily reminder not to film at the theatre.
“Unfortunately tonight at the Bord Gáis, we’ve got a beautiful audience, but there’s just one woman in the front row, been filming the entirety of act one. It’s had us all distracted, it’s ruined the morale of our wonderful eighth show on a Saturday night from selfish actions.”
Davies continued: “Hopefully she’s not back to act two. I’ve asked, ‘Can she go so we can just enjoy ourselves?’ But there have been a couple of people filming in Ireland this week, and I’m the kind of person, I will count how many seats away you are from what door, and you will be told and asked to leave.”
The actor, who rose to fame as a contestant on the 2017 series of Love Island, concluded the video by reiterating: “Don’t film. Let’s just enjoy the two-and-a-half hours together. We don’t need to film everything.”
Based on the 2001 Reese Witherspoon film of the same name, Legally Blonde runs at Dublin’s Bord Gáis until Saturday.
The comments from Davies – who has performed in stage versions of 9 to 5, Bring It On and Pretty Woman since leaving the Love Island villa – are the latest in a long line of stage actors hitting out over filming and other bad audience behaviour.
Audience members are told not to take photographs or film during theatre productions in order to protect copyright and avoid distracting both the cast and other ticket holders..
Earlier this year, Lesley Manville branded theatregoers who take photos during the curtain call “insulting”.
The Olivier winner, who at the time was starring in Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the National Theatre, told listeners on Radio 4: “Come on, it’s theatre! Let’s preserve it!
“We are all in this room, we are telling you a story, you’re listening,” she said. ”Clap or don’t clap, but don’t just stick your phone in our face. I find it insulting.”
