Ralph Fiennes is right! Ban theatre trigger warnings – they’re for softies

Actor Ralph Fiennes deserves an ovation for taking a stand against ‘soft’ audiences, says Paul Clements – being warned to expect ‘distressing scenes’ or even ‘theatrical fog’ gets in the way of a production and infantilises us all

Bard language: actor Ralph Fiennes says theatre audiences should not be forewarned about violent or sexual themes (PA)

Bravo, Ralph Fiennes. The actor has said it is time to scrap trigger warnings in theatres so that audiences can engage more fully with productions and be “shocked and disturbed” by violent or sexual themes in a play. Give that man an ovation.

This trigger-warning thing has become so silly of late to have been rendered redundant. The dreaded placard notice in the foyer, which was once purely practical – such as when warning about the use of strobe lighting or loud noises, which can induce epileptic fits – is now an opportunity for a progressive director to parade their holier-than-thou credentials before you’ve taken your seat.

The threshold for what is deemed triggering seems to sink lower by the day. Now, anything that might leave your average grievance Olympian literally shaking – I’ve heard of pre-performance apologies being made for strong language, dated attitudes, discussions of bereavement, on-stage smoking, “weapons, including knives”, “distressing scenes of music, family and romance” and even “theatrical fog” – is worthy of a warning.

Last month, a new production of Antony and Cleopatra at Shakespeare’s Globe in London came with a “content guidance” warning (the phrase “trigger warning” has itself been cancelled for being triggering). Audiences were told it contained “depictions of suicide, scenes of violence and war and misogynoir”. Unlucky anyone who was still busy googling that when the “phones off, please” notices went up.

Being warned that what you’re about to watch might be a bit edgy gives the game away – a bit like going to a pub that needs a bouncer on the door. You already know how sad a night you’re in for.

The greatest coup de theatre of recent years I can remember was at the Royal Opera House, during a production of Richard Strauss’s opera, Salome. The bloody execution of John the Baptist was all the more shocking and mesmeric because I hadn’t been forewarned by an usher in the interval about quite how gruesome and realistic the beheading would be. That said, I suspect the front row might have appreciated a nod, if only to expect a dry cleaning bill – because how do you get a spattering of crimson dye out of a fur stole?

Fiennes wonders if today’s audiences have gone soft: “Shakespeare’s plays are full of murder and full of horror,” he told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, “and as a young student and lover of the theatre, I never experienced trigger warnings like: ‘Oh, by the way, in King Lear, Gloucester’s going to have his eyes pulled out.’”

The 61-year-old actor has made a career out of characters who slowly, quietly unsettle his audiences – in Schindler’s List, playing a commandant who used concentration camp prisoners for target practice; as the unassuming serial killer in The Silence of the Lambs prequel Red Dragon. To put warning messages on either of these films – the latter, a horror film; the former, about one of the worst chapters in human history – would be artistically redundant.

Fiennes’s most exquisite performance for me was his 2022 West End staging of TS Eliot’s epic poem, Four Quartets – an impressive feat of recollection as much as a thrilling, pin-drop theatrical experience. I don’t recall a foyer notice warning that it contained references to war, loss and immolation. But perhaps the audience had something to do with it: there weren’t many under-60s in.

It’s easy to blame young people – but when impresarios are desperate to inculcate new generations into the theatre habit, all-must-have-trigger-warnings is part of a readiness to bow and scrape to “sensitivities”. At a time when West End tickets are routinely in three figures, it is commercially prudent not to alienate even the fussiest paying punter.

Of course, the trigger warning habit has germinated in academia – on university courses that warn adult undergraduates that the novels of Jane Austen contain “toxic relationships and friendships”, that Robert Louis Stephenson’s novel Kidnapped includes scenes of abduction, and that the classic children’s bedtime story Peter Pan might prove “emotionally challenging”.

I for one am with Sir Ian McKellen on this, who called trigger warnings in theatre foyers “ludicrous”, adding: “I quite like to be surprised by loud noises and outrageous behaviour on stage.”

And it’s not that new audiences are unhypocritical in their demand for trigger warnings. The Book of Mormon, the brilliant musical by the creators of South Park, attracts a younger-than-average crowd with the promise of blasphemy, near-constant swearing, jokes about Aids, FGM, Hitler’s sex life and baby rape. Trey Parker and Matt Stone don’t believe in trigger warnings. All the times I’ve seen the show, most people are too busy laughing or picking up their jaws from the floor to take any offence.

I wish theatres would stop pandering to the worst kind of patrons and instead make an example of them. The only sign I want to see before a performance is a reminder to turn your phone off, not just on silent – ideally, one backed up with a muscular threat of immediate ejection if you don’t. I would bet money that the kind of people who “need” trigger warnings about theatrical violence would think nothing of bringing in hot food to the stalls, or having a quick scroll on their Instas during a performance, the glow from the screen lighting up the dress circle.

If these blasted trigger warnings are here to stay, where do we draw the line? Which theatre is going to be the first to ban applause, to protect those people triggered by clapping, and instead request that jazz hands be used at the curtain call? Is giving a standing ovation disablist?

There – everyone happy now?