When catcalls greet the cast’s curtain call

This week’s boos at the Royal Opera House revive an ignoble tradition.

Vulgar? Rusalka performed at The Royal Opera House - When catcalls greet the cast’s curtain call
Vulgar? Rusalka performed at The Royal Opera House Credit: Photo: ALASTAIR MUIR

The boo is back. Yes, you heard me. This week, the audience at the first night of Dvorˇák’s opera Rusalka at the Royal Opera House roundly jeered both cast and creatives at the curtain call in protest at the “vulgar” staging. Their boos provided (at least for jobbing actors like myself) a sphincter–tightening echo of a venerable old theatrical tradition which (thankfully) is heard all too rarely nowadays.

Booing and catcalling may still be part of operatic heritage (after all, if you’d paid the equivalent of the Greek national debt for a seat only to witness a dog’s dinner, you, too, might be pretty upset) but, in theatreland at least, booing is consigned to history, along with playing God Save the Queen and prompters concealed behind artificial shrubbery on the stage.

The ritual of the boo is connected with another venerable tradition, now also defunct: that of the author being summoned to the stage on first nights. Historically, this was when dissatisfied audiences vented their spleen. However, George Bernard Shaw, who heard one audience member shouting “This is a load of rubbish” up at him from the stalls, at the conclusion of the premier of Arms and the Man in 1894, allegedly replied: “My dear fellow, I quite agree with you… but who are we two against so many?”

Another who suffered was John Osborne, one of the main protagonists in dismantling the stuffy, formal glamour of British theatre after the war. He was not only jeered when he appeared onstage after the disastrous opening night of The World of Paul Slickey, but was pursued by a mob down the Charing Cross Road, and only escaped by jumping into a passing taxi.

The art of booing reached its apogee between the wars, in the shape of the notorious Gallery First-nighters Club, a loose but highly opinionated confederation of theatre junkies who would sit in the gods cheering or jeering their views. Woe betide any upstart actor or dramatist who tried to challenge them.

Yet, since the ending of the Lord Chamberlain’s powers of theatre censorship in 1968, both they and the piquant contributions they espoused have died away. One drama critic, with whom I discussed the subject recently, couldn’t recall a single instance of booing in the past 30 years.

Instead, it’s been replaced by its cousin, the well-timed heckle, instances of which have become part of luvvy folklore, and none better than during a turgid dramatisation of The Diary of Anne Frank, when one audience member greeted the arrival of the German soldiers by shouting: “She’s in the attic!”

In any case, on those rare occasions when actors do detect criticism (or, worse, studied indifference), we’ve developed ways of explaining it away. The jeers must surely refer to the other actors, or the director, or even the author. Indeed, after a thumbs-down from J B Priestley at a dress rehearsal of his play When We Are Married, Fred Emney (playing the photographer) was heard to remark: “Well, if he didn’t like the play, he shouldn’t have written the bloody thing.”

But the best way to deal with being booed is to get your retaliation in first. Legend has it that Sir Ralph Richardson once stopped a play mid-performance and strode to the front of the stage. “Is there a doctor in the house?” he asked anxiously.

“I’m a doctor,’” came back a voice from the dress circle. “Doctor,” asked Sir Ralph: “Isn’t this an awful play…?”