It’s one thing to take your phone out at a movie theater, where it’s rude but ultimately forgiven (most of the time). It’s another thing to take out your phone at a theatrical production, where it’s just rude. It’s another another thing to take the time to pack up your laptop, lug it to the theater, and take it out during an already tense moment in Hamlet. But against all odds, that thing did happen.
All Of Us Strangers star and Hot Priest icon Andrew Scott was a guest on the Happy Sad Confused podcast when he recalled a time when a playgoer whipped out a laptop while attending Hamlet. Scott portrayed the iconic lead in the play, which ran at the Almeida Theatre in 2017. It attracted some…. disruptive people.
“When I was playing Hamlet, a guy took out his laptop — not his phone, his laptop — while I was in the middle of ‘to be or not to f***ing be’,” Scott said. “I was pausing and [the stage team] were like, ‘Get on with it’ and I was like, ‘There’s no way’,” he explained. Scott then said the audience member came to his senses after a woman nudged him. He joked, “It was my agent.”
Let’s give this computer user the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was getting ready to type up a glowing review of Hamlet and got so excited he needed to post it mid-show. Maybe he was so inspired, he needed to take some notes about being and not being. Or maybe he wanted to be prepared and order his dinner ahead of time so it would be ready after the show. You never know! He was just being proactive.
Source: https://uproxx.com/entertainment/andrew-scott-hamlet-interruption/
