'Game of Thrones' Fans Ruined a London Play by Loudly Eating Chicken Nuggets

Are you a big Game of Thrones fan? Do you go wild(ling) for the far off, world-weary look in Jon Snow's eyes? Well, if you shelled out big bucks to go see the real-life Jon Snow (a.k.a. Kit Harrington) perform as the lead role in the final performance of Doctor Faustus in London, one tough-talking West End theater producer has some harsh words for you: Stop shoving fucking McDonald's in your piehole during the play!

The award-winning theater producer Richard Jordan said that Game of Thrones fans were behaving as if they were from north of The Wall at the recent performance, where "munching certainly seemed to be the order of the day." In an exasperated essay for The Stage, Jordan complained that "a couple saw nothing wrong in producing from their bag a box of McDonald's Chicken McNuggets and a large side of fries. At the interval, they had popped out and purchased these to consume through the second half."

Who were these uncouth masses? Why, Game of Thrones fans, no doubt, Jordan assumes.

"What amazed me most was this audience, many of them Game of Thrones fans, could see nothing wrong in talking, eating and taking pictures throughout the show—or complaining when asked to stop," Jordan wrote.

Jordan was literally surrounded by hungry Game of Thrones fanatics who treated the theater like their slovenly living rooms, where they worship their television screens with slack-jawed reverence.

"The couple to my left ate their way through a large tub of popcorn during Act I, while the couple on my right chomped through a packet of crisps. It was like listening to eating in Dolby Stereo, and sadly at the expense of being able to properly hear the lines being spoken on stage. At the interval I asked both couples if they had brought their food in with them, and it emerged they had bought it at the theatre's concession stand." Jordan says that this performance of Doctor Faustus included more concessions breaks than any other rendition he had seen.

"There was also the necessary inclusion of an interval for bar and ice cream sales—here was a Friday night commercial audience out for entertainment in the West End."

The Seven forbid! And Jordan wasn't seated in the back of the barn with the hoi polloi like some King's Landing varmint. He was seated in a premium Royal Circle seat, which will run you £87 for a Saturday night showing of the upcoming run of How the Other Half Loves (hopefully Jordan doesn't find out), a show that doesn't even have the hot guy from Game of Thrones.

Jordan isn't alone in his disdain for people who eat loudly, snap photos, or talk through a play—to be fair, that's bad enough in just a movie theater. Kevin Spacey went out of his way to embarrass people whose phones disrupted shows while performing in London in 2004, The Guardian notes, and a survey from last year found that more than 60 percent of respondents thought that theaters weren't going far enough to police audiences. About half of those surveyed thought the behavior of audiences had declined.

It's unfortunate that Jordan had to deal with "the worst West End audience [he had] ever encountered." As he tells it, it does sound like people were behaving poorly, and he's right—it's a bad idea to sell crunchy snacks at a play. It's lucky that Jordan didn't know about that time Kit Harrington got in a fight at a McDonald's. Who knows what added vitriol it could have engendered.

But as he notes, "Lloyd's production of Doctor Faustus had a large, new, young audience. It will be interesting to see if they keep attending." Hopefully they'll grow up and get some manners—the future of West End Theater depends on it.