Hamlet actor Andrew Scott stops play after audience member spotted on laptop
Andrew Scott held up the iconic "to be or not to be" line in Hamlet thanks to an audience member.
The actor, 47, was cast as the title role in Robert Icke's Shakespearean production back in 2017. During one of his performances, Andrew revealed he "stopped for ages" when he became distracted by a member of the audience. Andrew, who is known for his roles as the “hot priest” in Fleabag and Moriarty in Sherlock, noticed a man sitting on his laptop during the play.
"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'," he recalled. "I was pausing and (the stage team) were like, 'get on with it' and I was like, 'there's no way'. And he didn't realise. I stopped for ages."
Andrew played Hamlet in 2017 on London's West End (WireImage)
The actor stopped his performance to make a point to the audience member (Hoda Davaine/Dave Benett/Getty I)Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Andrew said the laptop user eventually became alerted to what was happening when he was tapped by a woman sitting next to him.
Theatregoers have come under fire recently as last year four audience members were removed from a theatre following a "disturbance" during Grease the Musical. People could be heard clapping and repeatedly shouting "out" in footage shared online from Dominion Theatre in London's West End last summer.
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Police had to be called to aid security with the incident. An officer could be seen stooping down to speak to a man and a woman in the audience, while another officer appeared to gesture to another couple to leave. In a separate incident last year, two women were dragged out of a theatre by security during The Bodyguard.
They were said to be singing and screaming through a musical which caused the performance at Palace Theatre in Manchester to be stopped early. The audience members began singing over the top of performers, despite signs around the auditorium asking the public not to sing.
The musical was briefly paused during its first act to evict a group of people who would not stop singing and then had to be stopped early after police were called 10 minutes before its finale. The performance was reportedly cancelled shortly before it was due to end, with "mini riots" and "fights" breaking out among audience members before the announcement.
Greater Manchester Police said officers were called "after staff reported a number of people in the audience causing a disturbance" and confirmed that two people were removed by security staff. The disturbance caused wide debate online, with Britain's Got Talent winner George Sampson slamming This Morning for "encouraging" the controversial behaviour.
George, 29, took to Twitter to comment: "People just behave how they want, where they want, probably doesn’t help that @thismorning are encouraging this behaviour." This Morning presenters Alison Hammond and Vanessa Feltz had debated whether audience members should be allowed to sing along at a musical but were left laughing at the notion.
"Staff are taking this very, very seriously and inflicting these rules. They are regularly walking up and down the aisles before the performance and during the interval with 'no singing' signs' I mean, I can't believe it, I'd be devastated," said Alison. Vanessa added: "Isn't the whole point of going to a musical that you know, that you sing along to all the bits you know, and then when you don't know the words, you just make them up? I mean, isn't that what everybody does? Very, very loudly while eating an ice cream."
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