We don’t always love a singalong at a stage show

We all dread standing or sitting next to an idiot - or, even worse, a group of idiots - at a concert or theatre performance. But some audience members take idiocy to another level. Police were called last week to what has been described as a ‘mini riot’ during a performance of The Bodyguard in Manchester, where some people refused to stop singing along loudly to the closing number, I Will Always Love You. The song, made famous by Whitney Houston in the film version, has been belted out to mixed results by countless talent show contestants over the years. Others sing it so badly they considerately choose not to do so on prime time television or in the company of others.

But there’s no escape in the confines of a theatre and it must have been a nightmare being near those trying to bellow over the stage performers.

Certain people at live shows seem to think it’s fine for their own extravagant enjoyment of the event - or their lack of interest - to ruin it for others. Whether it’s holding a mobile phone aloft in front of you, conducting a shouted conversation or doggedly insisting on wearing a tall hat, we all have horror stories.

If you ever see

Vanessa Feltz at the theatre, probably best give her a wide berth. Discussing the

Manchester incident on TV’S This Morning, she asked: “Isn’t the whole point of going to a musical that you sing along to all the bits you know and when you don’t know the words, you just make them up?”

Yes, we’ve all been next to those people. At least their lyrical improvisation has a perverse entertainment value which makes them somehow less annoying than someone who knows every vocal inflection and belts it out with a demented purposefulness.

The best people to sit near are those who display a bored indifference but clearly there’s always one who would rather spark a riot with their intrusive vocal stylings.

‘Certain people seem to think it’s fine for their own extravagant enjoyment of the event or their lack of interest to ruin it for others’

Our columnist with her view of the world