I know it's a cliche of my impeding age as I morph into a grumpy old woman, but it seems to be becoming increasingly difficult to get anyone to stay still for longer than it takes to check a twitter feed. My local cinema can’t run a 90 minute film anymore without at least three people having to go out to pee or get another drink. In a recent trip to the theatre, another 90 minutes without interval, it was all rustle and cough rather than rapt attention as I suspect Avengers fans had come in to watch Pinter’s Betrayal with Tom Hiddleston and were waiting for a fight to break out.
At a Sadlers Wells gig, featuring a no-interval, two hour solo performance of the full Bach cello suite accompanied by contemporary dance, the crowd was on its best behaviour to begin with, sitting up straight in perfect silence. But then edges started to fray somewhere around the half way point as backs collapsed and bodies leant forward blocking the view of people behind (the choreographer seemingly not taking into account the angle of the bleachers and sent her dancers too often too close to the front of stage so no-one in the circles other than the first row could see anything). Tersely whispered ‘please sit back’ started to reverb around the theatre, along with guilty explanations beginning with ‘but the person in front ...’. As the performance continued with the inclusion of sticky tape pentagrams on the floor, silent pauses, back projected shadows (which were pretty cool), ever more skipping and repeatedly throwing themselves on the ground, little plumes of light started flicking on around the dark as smart phones revealed just how much longer we had left.
Suck it up people! If it's art, suffer for it. If it's the Avengers: Endgame, sit still and pay attention to the pretty colours. Despite some warping ideas from quantum physics, time really will go no faster by checking your phone or fidgeting.
