Why are American audiences so much better behaved than the British?

People in the UK like to think they are polite, but, says Liam James, that’s exactly why their manners are so lacking these days

Here’s a tale of two concerts. The first was in New York’s Carnegie Hall in February 2023. Celebrated pianist Mitsuko Uchida performed without interruption before a mature crowd of concertgoers.

The second was in London’s Royal Festival Hall last on Friday [7 March]. Celebrated pianist Mitsuko Uchida delayed her performance to reprimand an audience member in one of the front few rows who failed to respect a heavily signposted request to refrain from flash photography.

When she eventually sat down and began to play, Uchida’s performance was beset by the intermittent chimes of notification sounds, the constant squeaking of feet on the wood floors and, of course, the bright lights of phone screens flashing steadily in all corners of the crowd. One inspired audience member tried to use a crescendo in the second piece to mask the sound of them cracking open a can.

Uchida took it all in good grace – at one point joking between pieces about the collective coughing fits the crowd descended into during the second half.

Two years earlier, in New York, she wasn’t moved to make fun of the crowd. In this supposed cradle of the obnoxious, no one was rude enough to make more noise than her. Over the course of a few weeks in America’s cultural capital I saw concerts in Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center and films in cinemas all around the city; never once coming away with a complaint about crowd etiquette.

I can’t remember the last time I left a concert hall or cinema in Britain not grumbling about some or other audience indiscretion.

The difference, I suspect, has something to do with how Americans approach manners. In Britain, we take pride in our adherence to social courtesies. In America, they take care that other people actually adhere to them. And, yes, this means confrontation.

Once, an American called me a “f***ing a**hole” at a group dinner because he thought I was about to overtip on behalf of everyone. He’d miscalculated. But I was impressed nonetheless by his readiness to publicly shame me when I appeared to consider myself above the social code.

Call it rudeness in the pursuit of courtesy. If you expect that the people around you will call you out for bad behaviour, you have an extra mental barrier to overcome before, say, pulling out your phone to check a betting app in the middle of a Schoenberg piano set.

We shy away from confronting strangers for this sort of behaviour in Britain, choosing instead to endure the grating arrogance of our peers rather than risk being vulgar (Or, let’s face it, risk getting into a row with someone who has suggested they aren’t the sort to respect the rules of engagement). We ought to take a few lessons from our more outspoken friends over the Atlantic.

A friend recently told me about a concert he went to in Manchester where a pair of audience members chatted openly through the first half, going on after the interval until a man a few rows in front finally turned around and told them to shut up. Those around him cheered (he wasn’t facing the barbarians alone).

I can’t help but think that in America, this pair wouldn’t have so much as whispered through the first movement before being put in their place. From my experience, they wouldn’t have been chatting in the first place.

I’m perfectly happy to admit I’m a crowd snob. I swore never to go to the BFI Imax again after being trapped in my seat at the end of Ridley Scott’s not-so-great Napoleon when my entire row whipped out their phones the second the end credits started rolling. Do I really have to swear off the Royal Festival Hall, too? Where’s next?

Fran Lebowitz, who is something of an index of American manners, has spoken of the power of a sophisticated crowd to maintain high standards in their performers. She says dancers in the New York City Ballet of the 1970s and 80s were pressured into excellence in part by the weight of the erudite crowd’s understanding of the art form.

Heady stuff. Maybe in another world. I’m just thinking it might be nice to be part of a crowd that the performer doesn’t have to babysit. A crowd I’m not embarrassed to sit among. One where I feel that, at the very least, everyone off stage understands that they aren’t the most important person in the room.

Britain’s collective manners have dropped below this understanding – we aren’t going to raise them by being polite.

So no more stewing through a concert because some toerag a few seats down thinks other people don’t matter. I’m challenging myself to speak up and enforce some good public manners next time the situation demands it. Why don’t you join me? It would be rude not to.