But It's What The 'Guardian' Helped Teach Them, Ellen...

This, along with accounts of incessant loud booing in theatres, appears to be a sign of changing times. It’s not so much that everyone is a critic, rather that everyone is such a bad, incompetent critic, the kind of critic who is too impatient and lazy to fashion a proper critique so resorts to boorish disruption instead.

Gosh! I wonder where they could have learned such impulsive and sloppy critiquing?

I would have thought that, if you don’t like a play, you’d quietly leave, maybe ask for your money back, and fair enough. However, now there seems to be a new breed of uber-consumers who “know their rights” and (here’s a crucial shift) won’t sit passively as mere audience members but rather demand “equal billing” just for their reactions. In short, it’s the era of the self-sanctified right to reply as an instant dominant force that cannot be silenced or pacified.

Remind me again, what's the name of this publication you're writing for, Barbara?

While audiences are an integral part of the theatre experience, this doesn’t give individuals the right to throw tantrums, like tyrannical children, ruining the experience for everybody else. After all, when the media likes of me wish to spout ill-informed, unsubstantiated, semi-literate opinions, we usually wait until we get home. This kind of disruption (swearing, booing) seems beyond good, honest audience participation – it’s crude cultural vandalism. While performers often stand accused of being precious and over-entitled, it’s increasingly the hecklers who are displaying these self-aggrandising traits and we allow these situations to become the norm at our peril.

This rag helped to encourage the very strident virtue signalling behaviour it now decries. YCMIU, could you?