This Morning has come under fire over comments made by presenter Alison Hammond and guest Vanessa Feltz about singing along at musicals, which were branded “incredibly stupid”.
On Thursday’s programme, Alison and co-host Dermot O’Leary were joined by guest Vanessa Feltz where they discussed the banning of singing at the Manchester production of The Bodyguard musical.
Ahead of each performance at the Palace Theatre, staff carry signs asking the audience to ‘refrain from singing’.
Reading off a script during Friday’s show, Alison said that staff were taking the new rules “very, very seriously” and are “regularly walking up and down the aisles.”
As Dermot burst into laughter, Alison said: “I can’t believe it. I’d be devastated. I’m not even going to go to that show now.”
Vanessa then added: “Isn’t the whole point of going to a musical that you know that you sing along to all the bits you know and when you don’t know the words you just make them up.
“Isn’t that what everybody does? And very, very loudly while eating an ice cream.”
On Friday evening, two audience members were thrown out of Manchester’s Palace Theatre for singing loudly along to I Will Always Love You, which caused the production of The Bodyguard to be cut short.
Many viewers and performers have shared their outrage over the comments made on This Morning, with theatre actor Alice Fearn, who stars in the musical Wicked, describing them as “so incredibly stupid”.
“Who the hell do they think you are?! I am incredibly disappointed with all of the presenters here,” Alice tweeted.
“To actually think you have the RIGHT to sing along to a professional production is mind-blowing to me. If you want that… go to karaoke. I’m totally furious.”
Many others echoed Alice’s thoughts on social media...
This Morning had no comment to make when contacted by HuffPost UK.
The two leads in the Manchester production of The Bodyguard musical apologised to fans after Friday’s performance of the show was forced to end early.
Former Pussycat Dolls member Melody Thornton, who plays the lead role, spoke out after the last 10 minutes of the musical at the Palace Theatre was cut after some members of the audience refused to remain seated and refrain from loudly singing.
Speaking in a video posted to her Instagram story on Friday evening, Melody said: “I respect that you paid your money and I am so grateful to everyone who respects the people on stage who want to give you a beautiful show. For everything that happened tonight, I don’t have all of the details, I just am very, very sorry that we couldn’t finish the show. I fought really hard. It feels awful, and I just hope that we see you again.”
Her co-star, former Emmerdale and Hollyoaks actor Ayden Callaghan, tweeted that a “few badly behaved individuals ruined it”.
He said there had been “disgusting behaviour” and though the cast “wanted to carry on”, they were unable to because “it had become a major incident”.
He added that he was “really sorry to what was 99.9% a brilliant audience”.