Name: Broadway poop.
Age: Fresh, I’m afraid.
Why afraid? Fresh is good, no? Not if we’re talking about a poo.
And are we? I’m afraid so. Worse still, a human one.
Eurgh! Still, needs must and everything – we all have to do them. Not in the aisle of a theatre, during a performance.
Oh! And that happened? On Broadway, at the Shubert theatre, during a recent performance of Some Like It Hot.
No one likes it actually steaming. Hillary and Chelsea Clinton were in the audience.
Any suggestion … No, of course not! A source close to the show told Page 6, the New York Post’s gossip column: “The lights came up for intermission and there were two human turds in the aisle just near the famous political duo.”
That’s wild! The tabloid reports that an eyewitness “spoke to the house manager, who said it was actually the fourth time it had happened”. But then someone else said it was a rather tragic one-off accident. I don’t know, all these anonymous sources with their conflicting accounts – something …
Doesn’t smell right? Quite. But we don’t want this to turn into a vehicle for your puerile humour. Let’s talk about some other things that should never happen in a theatre.
Such as? Eating loud snacks, using phones – increasingly an issue post-pandemic.
Yeah, that’s annoying. Elsewhere, the director of the Edinburgh Playhouse, Colin Marr, recently said that audience behaviour is the worst he’s known it, pointing out the people who “chose to sing, dance and talk though the show”.
It shows they like it. Also, post-lockdown, people need to get out and let their hair down. Then there was a Guardian piece by a front-of-house worker highlighting the drunkenness and abuse theatre workers endure.
That’s not nice. And in January, back at the Edinburgh Playhouse, a performance of Jersey Boys had to be stopped and the police called after a brawl broke out in the stalls.
I’m still saying defecating is worse. What about dying on stage?
As in giving a really bad performance? No, as in actually dying. That’s what Molière did, performing in one of his own plays, back in 1673. Actually, that’s not quite true: he had a coughing fit on stage, and died soon afterwards. Since then dozens of performers have died on or soon after being on stage, including Sid James, Tommy Cooper and Eric Morecambe.
OK, I’ll give you that – dying: an even worse thing to do in a theatre than defecating. Arr! Thank you!
Do say: “Break a leg!”
Don’t say: “Lay a brick!”