Ö÷²¥´óÐã

First off, let me defend the reputation of Herr Brendel who thanks to a slip of the finger has been paused forever mid movement (and it was my fingers that slipped, not his, in case I defame his reputation further).

He was, of course, between movements when he ticked a concert goer off for coughing.

It was a mild rebuke for what sounded like a full blown outbreak of TB. And good on him too.

Wish he'd been in the audience of the international festival theatre show I went to last night, in which the words could barely be heard above the whispers of a party of German students.

That was the ones who stayed - several had already clambered over and left in the first 10 minutes.

And if you want full blown bad behaviour, two Swiss tourists in the front row of the Spiegeltent's Sideshow last night had a full scale domestic before passing out.

And before you say the shows must have been really bad, they weren't.

The international one wasn't great but it was an hour long - so surely theatre etiquette dicates you sit on your backside and have a snooze until it's all over, instead of ruining the experience for everyone else?

Just a week ago, I found myself barely able to stand up straight in a crowded cellar while the English company Badac concluded their harrowing show The Factory, in which we've followed a group of actors playing terrified Jews through a series of corridors to this last room.

They're naked and crying amongst us and I'm desperate to get out.

It's hot and sticky and smelly and I can barely breathe.

I don't panic easily but I'm beginning to panic.

But I still don't want to leave because it will mean everyone's belief in the story will be suspended as I shuffle out.

So I stay put, and I discover afterwards that I'm not the only one who wanted to leave (some much earlier in the performance - read my colleague Angie's experiences on www.bbc.co.uk/edfest2008

I'm not of course saying you can't leave mid show ever.

I went to see Finding Neverland the day before I had my son - going into labour is, I believe one of several legitimate reasons to leave a performance half way through.

And coughing, snuffling and fidgeting can't really count as serious concert crimes.

It does though feel symptomatic of a much bigger problem, which is we seem to have lost all sense of performance etiquette.

If you choose to go see a show, don't the performers deserve the respect that says you won't bring your mobile phone and text your friends all the way through the performance.

Supper clubs aside - they do still exist - can you really not last two hours without eating your way through a bag of boiled sweets/stinky nachos/bucket of popcorn?

Maybe the new look Usher Hall will have some old-fashioned usherettes (or ushers) to cast a stern glance at misbehaving types, to slip a cup of water to coughaholics and to let the performers get on with what they came for.