Actors who stopped a show to complain

Dame Helen Mirren's intervention on Saturday to stop a group of drummers isn't the first time a famous actor has come out of character to complain about noise during a performance.

In March 2009, Ken Stott was performing in Arthur Miller's play 'A View From the Bridge' at the Duke of York's Theatre. In the audience was a teacher who had brought along some of his teenage students. Unfortunately, they were making too much noise for Stott who halted the play in the first half and demanded that the teenagers should be removed or he would not continue. There was a 15 minute delay while others in the audience began a chant of "out, out, out". Eventually, the teacher and the students took their advice and left.

In November 2005, the late Richard Griffiths requested a woman to leave after her ringing mobile phone kept disrupting his performance during 'Heroes' at the Wyndham's Theatre. The phone had rung for the third time during the show. So Griffiths advised the woman to go and added that the rest of the audience would be justified in suing her. The audience applauded as she departed.

In April this year, James McAvoy halted a performance of 'Macbeth' at the Trafalgar Studios when he spotted an audience member filming the play on a mobile phone. McAvoy shouted at the man to stop who put his phone away and the play resumed.

However, actors do not always lose their cool when their play is disrupted. In November 2012, the Downton Abbey actress Laura Carmichael was nearing the end of her show 'Uncle Vanya' at the Vaudeville Theatre. Suddenly, one audience member began shouting. It turned out to be a former director of the National Theatre, Sir Peter Hall. He later said he had fallen asleep and then woken up and started shouting before he realised where he was. He also apologised to Carmichael.