Martin Shaw says theatres should ‘screen out mobile phone signals in the auditorium’

Martin Shaw has said that theatres should tackle the usage of smartphones by “screening out mobile phone signals in the auditorium”.

While discussing audience etiquette, the 78-year-old stage actor said drastic action was needed to prevent people from taking calls during plays.

In an interview with The Times, Shaw described the audience as “a single organism” that forms “an intrinsic part of the drama”.

“So when a mobile phone goes off, there will be a block of around 20 people around that phone who are excised from the experience,” he said. “That will spread like a virus and you’ll get the indignation and upset of everyone around.

“Then the actors lose their concentration... and all because of some idiot, some philistine, who hasn’t got the social responsibility to turn off their phone.”

The Alone Together star added that he has no problem in singling out disruptive audience members.

“If it happens during one of my lines, I’ll stop and look towards the mobile phone, so the person concerned knows exactly why I’m stopping,” Shaw said.

“Almost invariably, a round of applause will go up because the audience are so indignant that someone has been stupid enough to leave on their mobile.”

The actor also focused on how theatres need to become “a lot heavier about dealing with the issue, perhaps even screening out mobile phone signals in the auditorium”.

“Failing that,” he added, “maybe the theatre should put a sniper in one of the boxes”.

Shaw isn’t the first actor to bring up this issue. In 2014, Kevin Spacey called out an audience member whose phone started ringing mid-performance.

In 2013, James McAvoy halted Macbeth to confront an audience member for filming the play on his mobile phone.

Earlier this year, it was announced that London theatres may consider taking audiences’ phones away during performances after naked photos of James Norton were published by the Daily Mail.

The Happy Valley star appeared in the stage adaptation of the 2015 novel A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, which involves a nude scene for his character Jude.

After the show’s opening at the Richmond Theatre in March, illicit photos of the actor were published and then quickly taken down by the Mail following backlash on Twitter. However, they were also printed on pages one and three of the Mail’s physical paper.