A performance of Dracula in the West End on Monday night was halted after its star, Cynthia Erivo, spotted that an audience member appeared to be filming the show.
A representative for the production, in which Erivo plays all 23 roles, confirmed that there had been a short stop caused by the incident. A commenter on the forum Theatreboard, who said they had been at the show, wrote that Erivo – roughly an hour into the performance – “looked out into the audience and said: ‘Are you filming? Is someone filming?’ and stopped the show”. Another commenter said that they had attended Dracula – which is at the Noël Coward theatre – the following night and that there were extra reminders to the audience about taking photos and filming.
Illicit recordings are a rising concern for theatres, which sometimes issue audience members with stickers to place over the lens of their cameraphones when they enter the venue. This is the current procedure at Romeo and Juliet, starring Sadie Sink and Noah Jupe, at the Harold Pinter theatre, which did the same for Good starring David Tennant. In 2023, photos that were taken of James Norton during a nude scene in A Little Life were published online.
Lesley Manville has criticised audiences filming curtain calls. Photograph: Dave Benett/Alan Chapman/Getty ImagesWith rare exceptions when it is directly encouraged, such as the closing medleys in some musicals, filming productions is forbidden by theatres. It has become common at curtain calls for audience members to take photos and videos when the cast come on for their bows, but earlier this month the actor Lesley Manville decried that behaviour. “Clap or don’t clap, but don’t just stick up your phone in our faces,” she said on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row. “I find it insulting.”
Manville is starring in Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the National Theatre, where there are signs inside and outside the auditorium warning against using your phone, including during the curtain call. Manville said that during the play’s previews she had given one audience member “a bit of a stare” when they took their phone out and that “it never used to happen”. In New York, where she recently starred in the transfer of Oedipus, she said “virtually the whole audience” would take out their phones during the curtain call.
The Noël Coward theatre is one of the West End venues owned and operated by Cameron Mackintosh’s Delfont Mackintosh Theatres, whose terms and conditions prohibit “the use of recording equipment of any kind” and “the use of mobile phones, pagers, digital watches, laser pens or any other electronic equipment, which must be disabled at all times”. At some of its venues, Delfont Mackintosh Theatres does allow the use of GalaPro, an app that provides closed captioning and audio description on your mobile.
Dracula, directed by Kip Williams, runs until 30 May. Like Williams’ 2024 hit The Picture of Dorian Gray, in which Sarah Snook played 26 characters, it relies on sophisticated onstage camerawork.
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