Alas, I appear to be a middle-aged millennial

Such is the racket caused by chomping audience members that six West End theatres are instituting a “scrunch test” to establish which foodstuffs may be consumed without distracting the cast, or infuriating other audience members. Matters are said to be so dire that ticket holders have been known to arrive with Chinese takeaways or groaning hampers to be chowed down under the actors’ very noses.

The rustle of sweet papers sustaining the elderly was wont to be tolerated at matinees. These days, one is lucky if one’s neighbour doesn’t call out for pizza. I myself sat next to one such heathen at a recent performance at the Harold Pinter Theatre, already the world’s most infuriatingly proportioned venue. The woman sitting next to me arrived late, punched me in the face while settling her many accessories, then proceeded to indulge in an elaborate and odiferous supper, bestrewing me with debris. I have never hated anyone more.

That said, I confess that, now that I don’t drink, I have become a snaffler of the interval sandwich, something I used to regard as the preserve of anoraked National Theatre audiences equipped with Thermoses. No longer buoyed by booze calories, my ability to sustain several hours of opining isn’t what it used to be. As the play kicked off again, I still had half a cheese and pickle sarnie left.

I admit, it was a consummate pleasure to maintain a discreet nibbling – positively a will to go on – albeit the urge to ram my roll into my neighbour’s face was great. My own eating is obviously fine, others’ intolerable.

In fact, the thing that really destroys me as a form of audience discourtesy is an issue I have found myself confronting too much of late: the body odour of the person sitting next to me.

All too often, one is forced to sit with head cocked away from one’s neighbour’s armpits. Really, it comes to something when the most ghastly thing about going to the theatre isn’t the presence of actors.