Have you ever walked out of a cinema/theatre half way through a show?

Only one I can remember is the film Event Horizon. Generally though, I tend to hang on in case it improves. But by the end there's been a number of times with plays and films that I've wished I had walked out half way through.

In early 2nd pregnancy with bad sickness. On holiday in Margate, 1st child asleep & monitored, hotel put on ‘entertainment’ - a Chippendales-type act. Couldn’t bear the grinding hips in audience faces, I escaped before they reached me!

When we lived in Germany we bought, on a whim, some eye-wateringly expensive tickets for Holiday on Ice, early 1980s. We were in the best seats in the house and thought the girls would love it. The youngest wanted to go home after 15 minutes in which a 747 had come across the ice and The Smurfs were doing their stuff, apparently it wasn't 'That man and that lady what are champions', ie Torvill and Dean who she's seen on TV during the Olympics.

I'm not sure what it is where my two sisters and I are concerned - but we just DON'T agree on 'what we find entertaining'!

BOTH of them rave on - and on, and on - about:

'Mama Mia' - what a money-grabbing slapper who can't even work out which is the father and then let's them all think that her child is theirs!

'Les Miserables' (ie the crying bgrs )

'Blood Brothers' - over-the-top scouseness and far too predictable!

'Her Benny' - oh pleeeese - poverty Victoriana with a scouse accent

'Twopence to Cross The Mersey' - spoilt wife loses everything and has an ungrateful, resentful daughter.

Twice - I repeat TWICE - I've been dragged to see 'Blood Brothers' (on the pretext of a 'family outing').................... no more!

I was forced to sit through 'Mama Mia' on DVD - so for spite, I got my knitting out and didn't even look at the screen. I can't abide 'Abba Music' either .

Personally speaking, I LOVED watching 'Cats'.

I have done this more than once but have 2 memorable occasions.
The first was when I was a student at Newcastle University in the 70s . I went to see a play in a pub with friends. It had a seriously antisemitic theme . I seemed to be the only person bothered by this but I still stood up , said something about this and left !
The second time was not so dramatic.
Several New Years Days ago, when we could still go to the cinema, my hubby and I went to see Will Smith in " I am Legend " .
Good film but horrible with zombies killing people.
All fine.... until Will's lovely doggy got it !!!! I burst into tears and fled .
Never been able to finish seeing the film nor read the book !
Latterly I sat through a performance of " Whiskey galore" at a local theatre but desperately wanted to leave.
The play was fantastic. Could not fault it.
However, at the time I was on crutches with a severely broken ankle. It was my first time out in 12 weeks and it had been a challenge.
I laid my crutches beside my seat , tucked well in , out of the way . Sadly that was not good enough for one overzealous usher who came and shouted at me that I was a trip hazard and needed to move. It was very upsetting and embarrassing. I'm certain this was only a small taste of how permanently disabled people are treated a lot of the time.
I sat through the performance in tears, desperately wanting to go home but I did not draw any more attention to myself so I endured the whole performance.

No but I've nodded off several times!

Myself and my husband were invited to see Cats in the West End through his job so there were quite a few of us being wined & dined first and then taken to the show. Lovely seats and up to that point a lovely evening but, my goodness, the show started and I wanted to go home, it was awful! We sat there trying to look enthusiastic and come the interval we were all like nodding dogs, saying how much we were all enjoying it.
Only afterwards, when husband went back to the office the next day, did the others admit they'd wanted to leave as well.
The other time was back in the mid 80s, we'd been taken to see Barnum with Michael Crawford in the West End with friends who had seen it previously. They had raved about it and couldn't wait to see it again with us but I didnt like it one bit. We pretended we had.
Why do we do that ?

DH and I went to one of those Solid Silver 60s shows featuring assorted old artistes about 12 years ago. It was so loud that it distorted the singing and backing music. We stuck it as long as we could and then walked out while The Tremeloes were on!

This is what all oldies say but why does it have to be so loud? Most TV series are now too, and as for adverts.....

Once. I don't remember what; there was so little legroom that we had to admit defeat!

Soldier Blue, a long time ago-too bloodthirsty and made me feel queasy.
Like you Teddy123 I’ve dozed through a few including Chicken Little, that I’d taken the DGC to see.

I pay good money to go to the theatre or a concert, and if I don't enjoy it, I leave at the interval.

I have also left an opera early, not because I wasn't enjoying it, but because I just could not stop coughing. I didn't think it fair to the others in the audience, or to the performers to stay.

Decades ago I walked out of The Devils (Oliver Reed). I coped with some of the more gruesome scenes (with nuns) by closing my eyes, and nearly got to the end. The burning got to me, I could smell the flesh. I think it was very near the end. My then bf didn’t leave with me!

Many years about 40 years, watching a Magician/Hypnotist, he hypnotised two men and made them do degrading things like acting like dogs? I felt embarrassed for them!

NanKate

When we were first married we went to see the film of Canterbury Tales. I was almost 9 ninths pregnant and just managed to squeeze into the seat in the middle of the row.

The film began and we realised this was in fact a film called ‘The Other Canterbury Tales’ which was a sexed up interpretation, we hated it and I had to push my large bump along the full row to get out. As we did so we saw our neighbours ?.

We often laugh about it now and suspect we wouldn’t be at all shocked if we saw it again.

I recall going to see the Canterbury Tales at the Leeds PLayhouse, during one of the (many) bawdy scenes an entire row stood up and walked out, it was a school party accompanied by their Nuns! What they expected the CTs to be I don't know.

Yes - my daughter (early twenties) and I went to the cinema in the Kings Road in Chelsea to watch a Shakespeare play being filmed and broadcast live from a theatre. It was absolutely dreadful, lost a lot in the transmission and I said, shall we make a dash for it? And we did.

ollibeak You made me spray my coffee - still laughing! ?

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

I wish I had had the courage to walk out of Annie and nothing would ever get me to sit through all that screeching again. I did walk out of a Songs from the Shows production, my DH bought me tickets for my birthday for some unknown reasons as he should know by now that that is a genre I don’t like, the male lead ‘singer’ was just awful and I refused to go back for the 2nd half.

My friend and I have spent years going to the theatre, ballet, cinema etc but I've never liked musicals and only went to please her. Eventually I told her I didn't like them so after that she'd go to them with another friend. After a couple if years she asked me to go to Les Mis. She'd seen it twice before and assured me that even though I didn't like musicals I'd love Les Mis. What an endless dirge, I had to fight to keep my eyes open. I always thought the first half of any musical was awful but they usually perk up in the second half so you leave thinking it was good! I too gated Cats, a,though the set was impressive. Starlight Express was actually quite enjoyable and the Lion King was fantastic, but both if those are really for children and we'd taken our son as birthday treats.
Love ballet but the same friend and I went to see Sleeping Beauty performed by the Vienna Ballet Company and were stifling giggles all through it. It was very amateurish with the dancers wobbling about and looking as if they might fall over.
At least we were entertained.
And finally don't get me started on some if the stuff at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford. We live nearby and used to go regularly to afternoon matinees as they were cheap, but some of the productions were just awful, especially the comedies.
However, I've never actually walked out before the end.

glammanana

I have never walked out of a cinema but have fallen asleep quite often after 10 minutes.

Me too, usually doing my good Grandma act by taking them to various things like Beauty and the Beast, vey good for insomnia.

Yes, I slept through most of the first half of Cats and left for the second half and as for the Lion King , well I really don’t understand why people love it, I thought it was rubbish so I walked at half time!

Twice. Once in Malvern where Jane Horrocks completely ruined a Shakespeare play and once during the interval of a very peculiar ballet where the dancers walked around picking up and putting down apples!

Yes, but I can’t remember the name of the play. It had very graphic scenes of a woman giving birth - really distasteful, and certainly not entertainment.

3 times all plays. Stones in your pockets a one man show! TOMMY pinball wizard with Kim Wilde and a modern Sweeney Todd with Jason Donovan. My then boss went to see the Sweeny Todd one the day after and phoned me up from a pub next door to have a go for not warning him. He left his wife and mother in law in the theatre and spent the time in the bar.

Dream Girls at the Savoy Theatre in London only three years ago. Loud, screechy, deafening and predictable. (Mind you, now I’m so theatre-deprived I would probably love it!)