Peace at last ... Sienna Miller and Helen McCrory in As You Like It - and a ringtone-free moment? Photograph: Tristram Kenton
By the time you've spent £30 each on two tickets for As You Like It at Wyndham's Theatre in the West End - plus £1.50 booking charge for each ticket, plus £3 on a programme, plus all your loose money on a couple of drinks - you'd imagine that at the very least you might be spared the repeated explosion of a ringtone millimetres from your ear during a performance (and I won't even start on the incredible amplified crisp packet several rows behind that).
It's even worse because I know I react badly to such intrusions: my head swings melodramatically to my hands, my head shakes vigorously, I turn and glower in the direction of the perpetrator. Yes, I'm probably making it even worse for everyone else.
The other night the atmosphere got quite nasty - the man sitting next to me, obviously judging my brand of passive-aggression inadequate, turned round and hissed menacingly, "Just turn that fucking phone off!"
Since we were sitting in the front row of what is laughably known as the "grand" tier, with an impressively deep drop before us, I started to imagine there might be some outbreak of violence, with one of us hurtling headlong into the dress circle below. No result, though: the phone continued regularly to go off, quietly but persistently, for the whole of the first half.
The menacing hisser baled at the interval: I guess admitting defeat is one way of dealing with it. But what do you do when faced with a mobile phone offender on this scale?
* Back-row blogger is going to be posting regularly for Culture Vulture over the coming months. Find out more in her first blogpost.
