I thought I saw it all during my time as a theatre usher, but the story in today’s Guardian about a performance of The Bodyguard musical being halted after audience members refused to stop singing tops every one I have. It certainly never happened at the musical playing when I worked at Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London, nor at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto. Most of the shows I worked at RTH were Toronto Symphony Orchestra shows and those audiences were incredibly polite and restrained; the worst thing that can happen at a symphony concert is someone clapping between movements!

Roy Thomson Hall was also rented to other artists. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan performed a fantastic and very long show for an excited and enthusiastic audience. As part of showing their appreciation for him and his music, audience members would make their way to the stage, dance, and toss money at Khan and his musicians. There were probably people singing along, too, but that was expected in this tradition.

I was stationed in one of the upper levels of the hall for the Khan show, enjoying this joyous event, when suddenly a man jumped up from his seat, overwhelmed by both the experience and probably a bit too much to drink, and started down the stairs to the front of my section, seemingly intent on jumping down to the main floor to give money to Khan. His poor wife was crying and pulling on him to stop, and a couple of us ran as fast as we could to intervene. Luckily some men grabbed him as he reached the bottom of the stairs and was getting ready to hoist himself over the railing, and someone helped him find safer passage to the stage.

There was also the evening when some Hong Kong-based pop stars performed to a full house. The audience wasn’t memorable, but it was one of the young singers who caused quite a fuss. He had been a tennis player at one time, and part of his schtick was throwing tennis balls into the audience. He didn’t just gently toss them into the first few rows, but instead lobbed them off the walls of the theatre! Most of the walls at RTH were cement at that time and the balls bounced wildly, bonking people who couldn’t follow the path of the projectiles. The management were livid, but thankfully he didn’t throw too many and no one was seriously injured.

There were always a few difficult patrons, people who weren’t happy with their seats or didn’t like the show, but most audiences were unremarkable and blur together. One audience, though, was unforgettably rude and unpleasant, and it might surprise you to find out who they were.

One December evening in the early 1990s, a religious organization held a Christmas song service for their Toronto region members. There was a delay in getting the stage set, so we couldn’t let the audience in on time, something totally out of front of house control. In my section, questions turned into huffing and puffing and heavy sighing when I denied people entry, promising them it would open soon and they wouldn’t miss anything because actually nothing was happening inside the theatre. People ripped programs out of my hands, others asked to speak to a manager, annoyance and anger tensely buzzing in the air.

After everyone was finally seated and the carol service had started, I went down to the main floor to join other ushers in preparing for intermission and everyone had the same wide-eyed look and similar stories: rudeness, people pushing past, sneering, threats. Some had worked at RTH for years and had never had an evening like it. None of us could believe that this particular group would have been so awful, and the fact that most of the Salvation Army members had been in uniform added a whole other level of strangeness to the evening. I went on to another job where I had dealings with Salvation Army groups and I can’t say anyone ever changed my first impression of them!