LETTER : Bad behaviour at the Globe

From Mr Rowland Nelken

Sir: I hope Mark Rylance, the newly appointed artistic director of the Shakespeare Globe Theatre, reconsiders his attitude to audience participation before the opening of the theatre next year ("Globe director looks forward to the bear pit", 2 August).

Anyone who could consider as "delightful" an audience that heckles and throws things must have spent their entertainment career in the theatre, or another medium, where decorous audience behaviour can usually be taken for granted.

Those of us who earn our crust entertaining at restaurants, social clubs and parties often yearn for a tradition, an ethos, where entertainment has its own respected space, rather than being an optional diversion, subservient to eating and drinking (or the sunshine and rain, which are the Globe's other attractions).

The open-minded, tolerant and listening audience has taken a long time to become established. Please, Mr Rylance, do not enthuse about a backward step!

Yours faithfully,

Rowland Nelken

Colston Bassett,

Nottinghamshire

2 August