To "RE:" or not to "RE:" - that was probably the metaphorical crossroads that a rude audience member was mulling over as he witnessed Andrew Scott staring daggers at him during the "Sherlock" actor's performance of "Hamlet," after said theatergoer opened his laptop to work.
The incident happened in one of the performances of Robert Icke's production of the famed tragedy at the Almeida Theatre in 2017.
Scott recalled the whole experience during an interview in the "Happy Sad Confused" filmed podcast, saying that he was utterly shocked as he noticed a man in the audience open his laptop during his renowned "to be or not to be" soliloquy.
"When I was playing Hamlet, a guy took out his laptop - not his phone, his laptop - while I was in the middle of 'to be or not to f***ing be'," said Scott, who believed the rude theatergoer was in the process of sending emails.
"I was pausing and [the production staff] were like, 'Get on with it' and I was like, 'There's no way.' I stopped for ages," the actor continued.
The man with the laptop only snapped out of his email-centered trance when another member of the audience alerted him of the furious Scott glaring over at him. "It was my agent," the actor quipped.
Andrew Scott's Recent One-Man Performance
The renowned "Fleabag" star was recently acknowledged at the 67th Evening Standard Theatre Awards, for his greatly praised one-man iteration of Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" which ran for a total of six weeks at the London, Duke of York's theater.
The honor Scott specifically received was the coveted Best Actor award, which was given to him in the presence of other theatre icons like Nicole Scherzinger. The ESTA ceremony happened last Nov. 19 of the previous year.
In an interview with the publication, the actor expressed that he was "really, genuinely thrilled, shocked and surprised" to have bagged the win and that it was already "really surprising" that the play itself received high viewership despite it being an "unusual idea."
"But we had people saying they'd come from Venezuela and New Zealand to see it," he added.
