Phone etiquette in the theatre and inspiration for part of Inside No 9 Stage/Fright
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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-
