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

Yes, walked out on Les Miserable. Bored stiff. DH would have stuck it out but I couldn’t.

I'm with Bluebelle when it comes to The Greatest Showman - I have never got past the first 20 minutes, believe me I have tried.

GS had a 7th birthday trip to see a dinosaur film at the IMAX at Waterloo, he and his friends loved it but his mother and I had to take out sobbing 4 year olds, his sibling and cousin, in the first few minutes!
When GS was 4 himself I took him to Dick Whittington at Sadlers Wells, before the performance we’d handled the artificial rats and he was face painted as a pirate. When the rats appeared, moving, on stage he pleaded with me to take him home, eye patch streaking his face. The stalls seats were expensive and I calmed him down; by the end he was so loudly enthusiastic that Peter Polycarpou suggested from the stage that he should be the next Lord Mayor of London!
A friend and I left a matinee of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels at the Savoy in the interval. She had a headache and I was happy to leave with her. Great set and costumes but schoolboy smutty jokes, loudly enjoyed by a coachparty. Onewomen in screaming hysterics was having such a good time that she sounded as if she might need a fresh seat cushion.

BlueBelle your comment made me remember The Mousetrap also.

I simply could not stay awake it was very embarrassing, made worse by the fact that we had travelled all the way from Australia and wanted to see as many shows as possible.

We did see some wonderful shows but The Mousetrap was very dated we thought.

Priscilla Queen of the Desert

I fell asleep through one of the early Harry Potter films, my Daughters pestered us to take them at the time, I had just finished night duty and was tired anyway, and could not remember anything about it afterwards!

The second time was when I went to a boring after Dinner history lecture by a retired Admiral, my husband's idea, not mine! It was onboard a Cruise ship, and was partly down to his droning voice, and partly the fact that I wasn't in the slightest bit interested in what the pirates and battleships did many years ago!
I could hear rumbles of snoring coming from the rows of seats behind me, and before l knew it, I had joined them, waking up only as the bright lights came up, and people were preparing to leave!

I never liked Ken Dodd but that Rottweiler line nearly convinced me!

I’m surprised anyone could leave a Ken Dodd show early.
I thought he had rotwiellers patrolling outside.
He told us that - was he lying?
He wasn’t my favourite comedian but my DH loved him. I was full of admiration when we left. He was amazing - a little(OK a lot) of innuendo but no swearing.
I didn’t see the dogs when we left!

Bluebelle
Ha, yes I know, I also know people who absolutely hated it. Don’t understand it, but of course you’re entitled to your opinion

I went to a live screening of “Amadeus” at our local cinema a couple of years ago. I loved the original film and all Mozart music, so had high hopes.
It was an awful “modern” production from a major London theatre and the actor who played Salieri mumbled his way through his lines.
I walked out at the Interval, as did several other people.
Just glad I didn’t pay West End ticket prices.

DillyTheGardener I’m sorry, I can’t stop laughing at this:

walked out of Base Moi, which I mistakenly thought was a French detective caper

It’s an incredible film that’s very unflinching about the realities of sexual assault - probably one of the best examples of the ‘female revenge’ genre. But I remember how much publicity it got for being explicit and violence, the posters all looked gritty and the film’s title literally translates as “F**k Me”.

I’m sorry you saw a film you definitely weren’t prepared for but...how?!

No sara I don’t want to watch it again I hated every minute of it and won’t change my mind glad you enjoyed it but I didn’t and we re all allowed to be different I know quite a few other people who didn’t like it I wasn’t alone probably a marmite thing
Like Cats my friend adored it I was bored out my head
I love Les Mis film and stage show and Phantom which others haven’t liked

Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance. We enjoyed the first 15 mins but then it was just repeating the same dancing, over and over....

Twice, both at The Lowry in Manchester. The first was Hamlet, starring Rory Kinnear. I usually like him but this was interminable with all the cast leaving huge pauses between lines and we started to think that nobody had actually learned their parts.. We also left early on during Peter Pan Goes Wrong, which most people seem to think is really funny but it did nothing for us, particularly as a chap behind us guffawed at every gag and insisted on explaining loudly to his companion what the joke was. I was ready to scream after the first 10 minutes.

When I was about 17 I took my Gran to the cinema as a treat for her birthday. There wasn't anything on that we really fancied when we got there, so took a chance on a film called 'Blue Movie'. We were back out of the door by the time the opening credits had finished and went for fish and chips instead. The story kept the whole family in stitches for days.

I must have been extremely innocent - I can't imagine a 17 year old these days not knowing what a blue movie is

Only once, it was a play by Eugene O’Neill at the theatre royal in Nottingham.
We couldn’t understand it and after the first act gave up trying.

A couple of years ago we took our grandchildren to the pantomime in Glasgow as a treat after Christmas. It was awful, full of innuendo and very coarse.
Lots of school parties were there and it was billed as the children's performance.
We walked out before the end of the first half.
When we got back to DD's house, she sent off a complaint.

Yes! The first pantomime we took our grandson to. He was 3 and it frightened him. So off we went home after about half an hour.

It was supposed to be a fun happy afternoon?

The following year he loved it?

Boz

We walked out of a Ken Dodd show in the June before he died the following March. A really great Comedian who went on for too long. I admire his tenacity but felt very sad because he should have rested on his reputation.

Some people say that Paul McCartney should have given up too but he loves performing and plenty of people are happy to pay to hear him. Maybe it's something about Scousers but Ken Dodd so thoroughly enjoyed performing that his shows always overran, sometimes by hours, and although some had trains to catch few I think regretted the extra performance.

As a film student in my old age I have to stoically endure some tosh. The only film I've ever actually walked out on was a Mel Gibson film about aliens and crop circles. Was it called 'Signs'?

I walked out of a performance of the opera 'Carmen' once. It was in Kraków, Poland and it seemed like a good opportunity as going to the opera is cheap in Poland and often good quality - under communism everywhere got a new opera house to give culture to the proles, except for the ancient cultural and intellectual centre of Kraków which got a huge steelworks to teach it some good proletarian values and enough pollution to damage a lot of the medieval architecture. Anyway, I digress. It wasn't exactly La Scala but it was Opera and it was Carmen, the opera you take people to who don't like opera because it has lots of familiar stirring tunes right from the start of the overture. You do need a spirited production though, because it's quite long and if it doesn't sparkle it can drag. Unfortunately this performance had all the sparkle of a wet dishcloth and Pastia's bar (where the toreador does his bit at the start of act 2) was full of the kind of passion you might find at an ice-cream social in Oklahoma. Also, between each act there was some kind of dumb-show of Don José in the condemned cell. We left halfway through act 2.

Oh yes, you reminded me Oldwoman. We also left a local comedy club due to the comedian thinking a succession of swear words was funny in itself. It was a shame, it was usually a very good small club.
Niochorio, my image of David Essex is ruined for ever!

Left in the interval of a performance of Anthony and Cleopatra at the Globe theatre nothing to do with the play - it was way too hot with the sun shining on my neck and in an uncomfortable seat. Also my GC and I had to leave the theatre performance of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the interval along with everyone else as there had been a power cut. We got a refund. We have left concerts at half time when we’ve had enough.

A professional production of a dramatisation of A Henry James novel, which was unremittingly tedious; and the film Cherulata - The Lonely Wife. After about twenty minutes of the latter we decided to try a new restaurant that had just opened. We were the only diners, and the place was totally atmosphere-free. After a while the girl I was with said “Just as well this isn’t our first date.”

Thanks D (&C). WB it will be! Also half remembered.....'Crouching tiger ? Dragon'. Further help duly anticipated/appreciated!!

A tacky comedy show in Melbourne at the Arts Centre there. We were with friends but couldn’t stand it so we just left during the interval. I don’t mind blue jokes but these were just not funny. The place was full of trendies from the city all dressed in black with loud voices.

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