Ralph Fiennes says audiences have gone ‘soft’ and woke trigger warnings at theatre should be ditched
ACTOR Ralph Fiennes has slammed theatres for putting trigger warnings on shows.
The stage star, 61, criticised the woke messages and said people should expect to be surprised during performances instead of being warned what will happen.
It comes after London’s The Globe theatre gave a trigger warning for “upsetting” themes in its production of Romeo & Juliet.
Asked if he felt like audiences had gone soft, he said: “I think they have yeah, I think we didn’t used to have trigger warnings.
“I mean they are very disturbing scenes in Macbeth and there are terrible murders and things but I think the impact of theatre should be that you’re shocked and you should be disturbed.
“I don’t think you should be prepared for these things.
"When I was younger we never had trigger warnings for shows.”
Ralph, who rose to fame as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company and went on to play Voldemort in the Harry Potter films, made the comments during an appearance on BBC1’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.
Quizzed on whether trigger warnings should be ditched, he continued: “I would yes, I would.
"I think things like strobe effects, things could affect people physically, they should be notified.
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“But Shakespeare’s plays are full of murders and full of horror, and as a young student and lover of the theatre I never experienced trigger warnings telling me, ‘By the way, in King Lear Gloucester is going to have his eyes pulled out’.
“I mean the shock is, ‘Oh my god, this thing is happening’.
"It’s the shock, it’s the unexpected. That’s what makes an active theatre so exciting.”