6 days ago

Paul Glynn,Culture reporterand

Ewan Somerville,BBC News

Rosamund Pike called out an audience member for texting during an emotional moment from her performance in West End play Inter Alia on Saturday, saying: "When I feel that and see it, it's hard."

The actor and producer returned to the stage at the end of the play at Wyndham's Theatre to politely remind people of theatre etiquette.

Pike said she hoped the guilty texter was a doctor and that their message had been "very important", during an impromptu speech which drew gasps and then cheers.

"I just wanted to say for anyone going to the theatre, it's a huge thing that we're trying to give you. I am trying to tell you a story, and I'm feeling you, and I hope you're feeling me too," said the Saltburn and Gone Girl star.

Earlier this year, Pike won the Olivier Award for best actress for her role as Jessica Parks, a London Crown Court judge who sees her work and family life collide, in Inter Alia.

The play, written by Olivier Award-winning writer Suzie Miller (Prima Facie), focuses on sexual assault and the injustices of the legal system.

After asking the audience not to film her speech, Pike addressed a certain broad section of the stalls - the seats closest to the stage - which had distracted her during a crucial scene.

"You know who you are and I'm not going to single you out," she said.

"Maybe it was very important, and maybe you're a doctor, and you're saving someone's life, and I hope you are, but we do see these, we do feel them.

"I've got you, I feel like I've got to hold you all, so when I feel that and see it, it's hard."

'Irritated and annoyed'

The audience were "irritated and annoyed" that someone had been on their phone, and gasped during the speech before cheering and applauding when it was over, the BBC understands.

An audience member who witnessed Pike's speech, and who wished to remain anonymous, applauded the actress for her intervention.

She told BBC News: "At the end of Inter Alia, an incredibly moving and thought-provoking play, Rosamund Pike came back on stage alone.

"I assumed she would announce a charity collection, as is common in West End shows. But we were stunned to hear her berate an audience member in the front of the stalls who had been texting throughout the final, most moving scene.

"The audience was suitably appalled, although next to us a gentleman had an Apple Watch going off constantly and the couple behind me talked through the whole show."

The part when the person was on their phone was "the hardest bit of the play" where a serious admission is made on stage, the audience member told us.

She added: "I wholeheartedly applaud Rosamund for her speech, where she didn't directly identify the person, but did explain at length the impact on an actor if someone is on their phone. Sadly, I doubt this person will feel any guilt as we live in such an entitled world now."

Addressing the debate around phones in theatres more broadly, she said she was still "totally behind audiences filming the bows" at the end, however, and supported the idea that people should be able to capture curtain calls.

She pointed out that many shows already film and share the bows online - and for parents of child actors it may be "the only footage they'll ever have of their children on a West End stage".

But, she said, there is "absolutely no excuse for a phone during a show" as "in an emergency you can simply leave the auditorium to deal with the issue".

It's not known why the audience member was using their phone, but one deaf theatre-goer who read about Pike's comments told BBC New she sometimes has to use her phone hearing aid app to adjust sound levels to hear the play.

"Blanket device bans and public shaming inadvertently exclude disabled audiences," said Professor Nicole Brown.

Many theatres, like cinemas, ask audiences to switch off their mobile phones during performances.

Pike is not the only actor to have called out audience members for using them.

Cynthia Erivo interrupted her recent performance of Dracula after spotting an audience member filming. And Andrew Scott halted his "to be or not to be" soliloquy in Hamlet, a few years back, after someone started using a laptop.

Other stars including Daniel Craig, Hugh Jackman and Patti LuPone have all made similar criticisms, while Lesley Manville told BBC Radio 4 last month that she found it "insulting" when punters took photos, even of curtain calls.

Manville, who received an Oscar nomination for her role in the 2017 film Phantom Thread, said people should "take the digital out of it for just a moment".

"Come on, it's theatre - let's preserve it!" she added.

"We are all in this room, we are telling you a story, you're listening - clap or don't clap, but don't just stick your phone in our face. I find it insulting."

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's World at One on Monday, actress Juliet Stevenson praised Pike for stepping in, underlining how actors and audiences share a mutual "responsibility" in maintaining the "illusion" of an "imaginative world".

She argued that "one person's phone going off shatters that for everybody" and so disrupting the experience is "an act of extreme selfishness".

"It's very difficult for the actor because you feel not only is your own concentration very disturbed and you're pulled out of the fiction, but then you also feel you've got to try and pull the audience back as well, so you've got two responsibilities."