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 it has arrived from the kitchen. I have my own hobby horse, in the form of the cinemagoer. Why, tell me, did that woman need to eat an entire pizza during a showing of The Devil Wears Prada II? I do not believe that poor comportment instantly indicates poor personal values, but could she not have waited until afterwards?So you might wonder where all the good manners have gone. Perhaps they are just naff these days, associated with the aspiring middle, the residents of Privet Drive, the sensibilities of Hyacinth Bucket. Instead, maybe it is just cooler to possess a louche, devil-may-care attitude to basic conduct – excessive concern with manners could make one appear at best, uptight and at worst, petit-bourgeois. God forbid, not both. I was angry enough at the over-zealous lockdowns at the time: the curbs on freedom; the infantilisation of the entire electorate; the failure to believe anyone could possess their own capacity for risk management; the obvious (even then) effects it would have on schoolchildren. But now - though I would like to appoint a more obvious culprit - there is another thing to add to my list. This collapse in public decorum (you can use the ghastly word “etiquette” if you prefer) has followed the Covid-19 pandemic and attendant social confinement. Don’t believe me? People making loud phone calls on quiet trains has been an annoyance for as long as loud phone calls have existed. But tell me how frequently you had to listen to someone play music or TikTok videos out loud on their phones on public transport, before say, 2022? Now it is so widespread the poor, largely defunct Liberal Democrats party in Britain has launched an entire campaign to curb the antisocial behaviour. It seems a matter for Occam’s Razor: what do you expect to happen to people’s ability to behave in public if you cut off for the best part of two years their ability to appear in public? As corners of the world tumble into inchoate mob rage, this degradation of the public realm matters. Just as conspicuous litter or signs of architectural decay in a town centre – an empty main street, a boarded-up window – all conspire to make the rigmarole of life feel a little bit worse. And it is why things like clean streets and (good, it has to be good) public art are as much of a social positive as affordable healthcare and functioning public transport. It is important that people do not send emails from laptops in the theatre for basic reasons of taste. But also because doing so coarsens the social universe we all have to live in. [ The Whiteheaded Boy review: Heart of Abbey’s summer show lies in an unexpected placeOpens in new window ]But don’t let me get too worthy. I am thinking of all of this today thanks to the musician Phoebe Bridgers. You don’t need to know who she is if you’re not a depressive 17-year-old girl, but you do need to know she is capable of selling out huge arenas multiple nights in a row. The catch if you want to see her latest tour? No phones, or any “smart” devices for that matter. Put ’em away she says, and listen to the music, it’s what concerts are there for. (Enforcing this rule seems like quite an operation, but one she apparently deems worthwhile). Just like Andrew Scott and Jeremy King, I’m on Phoebe’s side. It is rude to go to a concert only to record the entire moment on your phone – it is isolating for everyone there too. And yes I get it: all this anti-phone, pro-manners harping sounds quite reactionary. But I cannot be the only one to think that we were – only just recently – a touch nicer to one another.