How not to behave on a trip to the theatre

SIR – Standing ovations (Letters, December 22) are one thing – but worse is the whooping that one so often hears.

I have even heard it following the performance of masterpieces by great composers.

Derek Wellman

Lincoln

SIR – After I had spent £400 on four seats in the stalls to watch a matinee performance of the Matilda musical, we found ourselves sitting behind people who had no consideration for anybody else.

I ended up watching them – instead of the show – as they passed a bottle of wine between themselves, whispering and glancing at their phones.

My grandchildren – who are seven and nine years old, and have been taught to sit still – had to crane their necks around these constantly moving individuals.

Surely the wine should have been confiscated; and perhaps, before the show, there should have been a reminder to everyone in attendance on how to behave in this environment.

Catherine Howie

Shoreham, Kent

SIR – Yesterday’s letter on standing ovations reminded me of when, in 1963, I was the pianist at the Little Theatre in Bristol and Beyond the Fringe was staged by the Bristol Old Vic. The show began with the three main characters clad in business suits and bowler hats, sitting facing the audience with newspapers opened in front of them.

I started playing the national anthem. The actors did not move, but half the audience stood up, while the other half took their lead from the actors and remained seated. The standing half then looked at the sitting half and sat down; the sitting half had looked at the standing half and were preparing to stand. This confusion continued for some time, and the noise created by the hundreds of tip-up seats nearly drowned out the music.

Richard Hodgson

Axminster, Devon

Quiet at the back: Private Box, Drury Lane (1837) by John Watkins Chapman