The news that the Broadway musical Rock of Ages will be offering in-seat alcohol during performances will send actors diving for the drinks cabinet. Can you imagine the potential for mayhem such an innovation will cause?
I can certainly think of plenty of shows I'd have benefited from seeing through the bottom of a whisky glass – or, ideally, several – but the notion of punters knocking back beer during the show, particularly if it comes in those crinkly plastic cups, is another matter.
We've only just weaned the general public off the habit of unwrapping half a pound of Dairy Box during the progress of the play. It may just be beer at the moment, but before we know it, they'll be touting hotdogs and pretzels, and it can only be a matter of time before they'll be offering patio furniture and quotations on home insurance.
In truth, the idea of serving in-play refreshments isn't as revolutionary as it sounds. Years ago, some weekly repertory companies used to offer tea and cakes from a clattering trolley service to matinee audiences. Many of them found any kind of existence insupportable without a nice of cup of tea and a slice of ginger cake at 20-minute intervals. Acting stalwarts of these far-off days assure me that whole scenes disappeared under the onslaught of slurping dentures.
But alcohol is a different beast. Rock of Ages (described as a "jukebox musical") should be immune to overzealous interaction from audiences, if only because it's so loud anyway. But I wouldn't fancy the chances for Strindberg's Miss Julie if the going got rough.
I've already seen the effects of audience overindulgence in my own career. During my time with the musical Mamma Mia!, the Friday matinees (or Easyjet specials, as they were fondly known) were often inundated by convoys of bemused German businessmen in the front stalls as part of their corporate hospitality package. By the time they'd arrived, they had usually imbibed so heavily at the working lunch beforehand that they'd either get up and start singing the songs before we did – or, worse, use the occasion to sleep off the effects of a bottle of red. It was difficult to know which was more dispiriting.
But even when the audience is silent, or rapt, or hopefully both, the list of modern-day distractions waiting to trip up the beleaguered actor is endless. There are some surprising culprits: staff stacking glasses too vigorously in the stalls bar, drilling from workmen in nearby buildings and, in one theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue, a hand dryer in the ladies loo that whirrs for a good 10 minutes after it has been last used.
One of my favourite interruptions, though, was regaled by a mate starring in a play about child abuse in the Catholic clergy, at a venue in Pasadena, during which an audience member in a motorised wheelchair decided to leave the auditorium mid-act. For five minutes, his fevered confession about his own experience of abuse as a child was drowned out by an automated voice announcing "WARNING … THIS VEHICLE IS REVERSING", accompanied by an array of flashing lights and beeping sirens.
But the last word in audience participation must go to the person who apparently once took a call on her mobile during a performance in the West End. "I can't talk. I'm watching a play," she whispered in a voice loud enough to be heard by both audience and actors. Then, after a brief pause: "No, not very."
