Rosamund Pike remained composed after a phone alarm in the front row interrupted a performance of Inter Alia on Saturday afternoon. The incident comes weeks after the actor reportedly scolded an audience member for using their phone during the same play at London's Wyndham's Theatre.
Phone alarm disrupts performance
Pike, who won an Olivier award for her role as a crown court judge in Suzie Miller's play, previously criticized a texter for breaking the bond between cast and audience, according to The Times. On Saturday, a front-row audience member reportedly failed to notice their phone alarm ringing for over a minute. Although Pike made no comments after the show, she is understood to have glared at the woman once the phone was retrieved from her handbag and silenced.
Audience member's account
One audience member in the second row said: "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. 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."
Theatre staff comment
A front-of-house staff member noted the difficulty of controlling mobile phone use, saying: "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. If it's within the middle of the row, there's not much we can do because you have to decide whether you're going to make more of a disruption by trying to signal to them than the actual thing itself. Usually people realise sooner than that, I'm not sure what was going on with this."
Growing criticism of audience etiquette
Pike's previous intervention aligns with a growing number of actors criticising audience etiquette and phone usage during 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 using a laptop to send emails.
