Rosamund Pike keeps cool after phone alarm interrupts performance
Rosamund Pike maintained her composure after a phone alarm in the front row disrupted a performance of Inter Alia on Saturday afternoon. The incident comes just weeks after the actor publicly berated an audience member for texting during the same play at Wyndham’s theatre in London.
Pike, who won an Olivier award for her portrayal of a crown court judge in Suzie Miller’s play, had previously criticized a texter for breaking the bond between cast and audience, according to The Times. On Saturday, an audience member in the front row reportedly failed to notice their phone alarm ringing for over a minute.
Although Pike refrained from making comments after the show, she is said to have shot a glare at the woman once the phone was retrieved from her handbag and silenced. One audience member seated in the second row described the disruption: “At first I thought the noise was part of the backing track, it was going on for so long. But it seemed entirely unfitting with the tone of the scene, about halfway through the play, in which the actors were engaged in quiet conversation.”
The same audience member added: “I felt so bad for Rosamund and the rest of the cast, especially after what happened a few weeks ago. She shot the audience member a glare and it seemed to have distracted her from the scene, although she remained entirely professional in her performance.”
After the show, a front-of-house staff member noted the difficulty of controlling mobile phone use in the theatre, stating that at least one person gets their device out at every performance. “It genuinely was at least a minute. It was an alarm on a phone ringing. It’s hard to know [if it threw the cast off]. I’d imagine it’s more on [Rosamund’s mind right now, as well, because of the last thing and it being in the front row again. We’ll see if she makes a kind of statement about it.”
Pike’s previous intervention aligns her with a growing number of actors criticizing audience etiquette and phone usage during theatre performances. Last month, Lesley Manville told BBC Radio 4 that audiences should not take photos and videos during curtain calls. “Clap or don’t clap, but don’t just stick up your phone in our faces. I find it insulting,” she said. In April, Cynthia Erivo interrupted her performance of Dracula in the West End after spotting an audience member filming the show. During a 2024 performance of Hamlet, Andrew Scott halted the “to be or not to be” soliloquy when he saw an audience member had taken out a laptop to send emails.
