Wicked star’s one-woman West End show was stopped in response to an increasingly common problem for theatres
A performance of Dracula in the West End on Monday night was halted after its star, Cynthia Erivo, spotted that an audience member appeared to be filming the show.
A representative for the production, in which Erivo plays all 23 roles, confirmed that there had been a short stop caused by the incident. A commenter on the forum Theatreboard, who said they had been at the show, wrote that Erivo – roughly an hour into the performance – “looked out into the audience and said: ‘Are you filming? Is someone filming?’ and stopped the show”. Another commenter said that they had attended Dracula – which is at the Noël Coward theatre – the following night and that there were extra reminders to the audience about taking photos and filming.
Illicit recordings are a rising concern for theatres, which sometimes issue audience members with stickers to place over the lens of their cameraphones when they enter the venue. This is the current procedure at Romeo and Juliet, starring Sadie Sink and Noah Jupe, at the Harold Pinter theatre, which did the same for Good starring David Tennant. In 2023, photos that were taken of James Norton during a nude scene in A Little Life were published online.
