We are facing an epidemic of bad manners. I do not spend much time in the theatre, finding the medium too often boring and now simply too expensive. But those who still bother will tell you that phone calls, conspicuous texting, unembarrassed chatter and broadly obtrusive behaviour have become commonplace.

Rosamund Pike – star of a weighty play about reckoning with sexual violence – made an encore of sorts at the end of one performance in May. She used it to admonish an audience member for using their phone during the weightiest scene of the night.

Meanwhile, Andrew Scott had to pause midway through the “to be or not to be” soliloquy in Hamlet a few years ago because – I laughed and laughed when I read this – an audience member had produced an entire laptop to send emails. If the emails are really so important, leaving the performance seems the obvious path of best behaviour, no? I promise you that Hamlet – world’s most celebrated play, and all that – will be performed again.

I celebrate each and every member of public life taking a stand against the bad manners epidemic. Elsewhere, we have London’s great restaurateur Jeremy King condemning the voluble influencers in his establishments who arrive with tripods and hold photoshoots and complain of cold food despite neglecting it for long after........

© The Irish Times