Slow Horses star Kristin Scott Thomas has revealed the worst theatergoer behaviour she’s ever seen: a fan in the front row eating a ready meal.
The Four Weddings and a Funeral star, 66, last took to the stage in the 2023 for Penelope Skinner’s Lyonesse, alongside Lily James. She will return to the Harold Pinter Theatre this month, alongside Stephen Mangan in Anton Chekhov’s final play, Cherry Orchard.
“People say, ‘Why do you prefer theatre?’” Scott Thomas said. “For me it is telling a story to live, breathing, coughing, eating people and trying to drag them along with you. Which I find incredibly thrilling.”
Scott Thomas joins an ever-growing debate over theatre etiquette in the West End. This summer, Rosamund Pike sparked attention after calling out an audience member for texting during her own Inter Alia.
Despite the disturbances, Scott Thomas shared with the Financial Times that she’s long preferred to work on stage over screen projects.
“Working for a camera is extremely lonely,” she said. “And working with a company, you just feel completely invigorated. And with this, the end-product is ours. Once you’re onstage, you’re onstage...You can keep trying things all through the production. It’s alive and pliable.”
Scott Thomas will star as the aristocratic landowner Lyubov Ranevskaya, while Mangan takes on the role of the self-made business man Yermolay Lopakhin, who’s worked hard to rise from the lowest tier of society.
The Slow Horses actor’s remarks come after her co-star admitted he’d once kicked a theatregoer’s feet off of the stage in an interview this summer.
“You sometimes feel as if the audience don’t appreciate that they’re in the same room,” Mangan told The Times.
“If they pull out a phone and start texting, we’re right there. We can see it. If they lean over and whisper something to their friend, we can hear it.”
Also in June, the Royal Shakespeare Company asked a woman to leave a performance on The Tempest after her baby repeatedly interrupted the production. Theatregoers at the play, which starred Sir Kenneth Branagh, complained about the disruption after hearing “gurgling and cooing”.
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