Phone etiquette in the theatre and inspiration for part of Inside No 9 Stage/Fright
Transcript under the cut. If you want to share any part of this post off Tumblr, please include a link back to this source.
MB: I was once in the audience of a play at the Donmar Warehouse. Which - which I don't know if anyone's been. It's tiny. It's really small. And it's in the round. And a woman's phone went off. And obviously everyone around is going "tut tut tut." And she answered it! She was, "I'm in the theatre!" It was extraordinary.
RH: That's what happens as well - you've done this, haven't you? The Inside No 9, the stage show.
MB: Yes! So brilliant!
RH: They start- they start with this brilliant, er…
MB: Yes!
RH: Brilliant thing. You think it's going to be a scene and it's quite long and it's all about the things-
MB: It’s SO good!
RH: …not to do in the theatre. But it's- one of them is talking on the phone [mumbles].
MB: Everybody's fantasy of what would happen to YOU, my good friend!
RH: But I had it once in Edinburgh - I must have told this story before - but I was doing Christ on a Bike and it was my first, like, proper solo show. And someone's phone rang and it was again, right there, it was, like, in the round, and it was right there, and the phone was ringing
and it was really- And I start- I was trying to talk through it, as we were there, and then it just kept ringing and I said, "Is it your phone?" to this guy. And he went "No, it’s not my phone!" And this guy was going "No." And then so we managed to find the phone and it WAS his phone.
MB: Amazing.
RH: And, and I was so angry with him, I just threw on the floor and it broke into- just spectacul-
MB: Wow!
RH: It was one of those old phones, just- It was 2001. Nokia. Threw it on the floor. It just exploded into three bits.
MB: See, that would get a lot of press now.
RH: Yeah, it would!
MB: There would be headlines about the... aggression
RH: But I was amazed because when the audience went gasp and then they went, "Yes!" Honestly and there was this round of applause, it was a brilliant- And then this guy said, "Wha- what are you doing? What you doing?" And I said, "You said it wasn't your phone. It's alright. It's not your phone. Don’t worry about it."
MB: Hah! I've just remembered that I was there at the birth of a detail of that-
RH: Right
MB: Inside No 9 thing.
RH: Oh were you?
MB: Reece and I went to the press night of a show called Machinal at the Old Vic, which was an incredible show and- but a really, really brutal drama. And sort of based on a true story and really political and very, very serious. And tragic. And someone's phone went off. We were towards the back of the auditorium. So I'm sure loads of people towards the front didn't know it was happening.
RH: Right
MB: And the actors carried on. They probably couldn't hear it. But we were right towards the back so we could hear it. Someone's phone went off and the ringtone was the Indiana Jones theme tune
RH: [laughs] That is, isn’t it? That’s what they use.
MB: der der der… Is that the one?
RH: [sings the Raiders of the Lost Ark theme]
MB: Incredible. And then it would sort of - In the way those ringtones do - it would stop at a certain point and then start again from the beginning.
RH: Yeah!
MB: And it just went on for so long. Everyone's looking round, going… No one wants to own- And of course you don't want to own up to it because you've got a fucking ridiculous ringtone! It's going off at the back of the Old Vic! But that's the ringtone-
(Different anon hi) That "I'll do anything" interview bit from your last fs post reminded me of the rhlstp he did with reece when an audience member says they want to have sex with tubbs and he asks for how much, couldn't more obviously be a joke but now I'm thinking thoughts and going insane thank you
HI omggg thank you so much for flagging this!! 😍🙏💝 rant incoming
firstly..... he'll do ANYTHING 😜 more willingly than any of them, i suspect, steve would okey-cokey-local-shop every day for the rest of his life as long as people were still enjoying it & paying for it. the idea of him degrading himself for money, to any degree, is always going to be hot to me. even if he personally doesn't mind it, reece will always be there to find it humiliating on his behalf 🙂↕️ although tbf in the same interview he talks about how degrading & unpleasant the ross/pauline scene was to shoot, so now i'm going to be thinking about how much money it'd take to make him recreate that scene for real 🧐
also the fact that he's engaging with the question at all, even as a joke, is really hot, especially the tone of voice on "how much" and "leave your name..." ESPECIALLY when the audience member in question is a woman, he's so grossss 🫠💖 maann if i was her and this happened to me i would die on the spot for real
also worth noting i think that the original question is "do you adopt your characters in the bedroom" and reece is instantly like "no. 😐😒🙄" while steve jokes about it and makes a 50 shades reference and never ACTUALLY answers the question so 🤷🏻♀️💁🏻♀️
this woman, like the who's dying first woman (and richard herring himself), is a fucked up kind of hero to me for asking something so creepy. i wonder why she said tubbs when they turned it back on her. maybe she's genuinely into tubbs! maybe it was a panic moment! tbf at the time goudron and squires did not exist. but pop did! imagine saying pop and getting to see their reaction. i would die
also btw!! obviously the whole bit where they talk about never having sucked each other's cocks etc is legendary, but on revisiting i was staggered by this gag
🥴 obviously steve + filming things, always, forever. and "it's for a DVD" — what an INSANE joke to make when you literally do go around irl filming people backstage FOR THE DVD. suddenly bringing a sinister level of specificity + realism to this riff about coercing reece into making a sex tape. obligatory plug for my stily fic which mentions the dvd thing :))
more specifically been thinking & talking a lot lately about party's over — "half of us agreed" + "don't, i'm not in the mood" [steve keeps filming anyway] + setting up the camera in the office for the corpse game etc :) just. filming reece. without telling him, or without telling him the real reason, or even just casually ignoring him when he objects. hhfigugh. and speaking of pop, LITERALLY just this morning been talking about the parallels with his hidden cameras. feeling super normal now thank you anon ily 🥰🙏💕
