When a cellphone went off during a recent preview performance of A Steady Rain on Broadway recently, the play’s stars, Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig, took the audience member to task from the stage. You can watch the video of the incident at TMZ.

The exchange went something like this:

JACKMAN: You wanna get it, grab it, I don’t care, grab it, grab your phone, it doesn’t matter.

(Craig watches, as the phone continues ringing.)

JACKMAN: Come on just turn it off … it doesn’t matter, unless you got a better story, you want to get up and tell your stories.

(Applause from the AUDIENCE. JACKMAN walks across the stage.)

CRAIG: Can you get that, whoever that is, can you get it? We can wait, just get the phone.

(The phone is eventually turned off.)

CRAIG: Denny took it hard.

(Rapturous applause from the AUDIENCE.)

Of course, there will be people that complain that the actors stopped the show to sort out the issue. And yes, the front of house staff should have been on top of it, especially given how long the phone was ringing. But that kind of complaint will come mostly from people who don’t realise how difficult it is to do your job with such an intrusive interruption.

Let’s say that you’re on the operating table. One of the nurses is having a chat on his/her cellphone. Would you expect the surgeon to carry on operating – doing his/her job – regardless? Or would you expect him/her to stop the nurse and create an environment in which he/she can do the job he/she is paid to do to the best of his/her ability?

I have no patience for people who use their phones in the theatre. Whether an actor points out the culprit or whether one of the FOH staff does it, the show will be disturbed. But it’s ridiculous that anyone should get away with it for the sake of not disturbing the show. The second that phone went off, the show was already disturbed. End of story. There should be a zero tolerance attitude towards this kind of thing. Any condoning of this behaviour for whatever reason only perpetuates it.