Cinema rage hits the big screen

First there was road rage, then trolley rage and commuter rage were diagnosed. Now there is a new type of anger: cinema rage.

A couple who asked the family behind them to be quiet during a screening of The Lord Of The Rings are among the first victims of this new scourge.

Andrew Morse and his fiancèe Rebecca Smith, both 26, were punched and kicked by the parents of the teenage boys, who seemed to think it quite reasonable to open cans of lager, cough and use their mobile phones.

Audiences are surely entitled to quiet, but is it unreasonable to expect complete silence in a crowded cinema - and who can truthfully say they have never coughed or noisily opened a bag of sweets as that pivotal moment unfolds on screen?

In an attempt to find out exactly how loud it is in the auditorium, the Evening Standard conducted an experiment using the latest technology. Armed with a £1,000 noise-monitoring device, which measures sound in decibels, our reporters measured typical cinema sounds: rummaging in a bucket of popcorn, opening a can of fizzy drink and using a mobile phone.

The sound ranged from below 50 decibels (unwrapping a bag of fruit drops) to almost 80 decibels (a bad cough). In comparison, noise in the home is around 50 decibels, a typewriter is 60 decibels and a crowded restaurant 70 decibels. Noise Abatement Society director Peter Wakeham said: "Having people open packets of sweets or cans of drink or whispering is the kind of irritation that can lead to stress.

"What can be worse than looking forward to seeing a good show and it being ruined by people making a row? These noises may not be harmful to the ear, but the results of the decibel meter show that they are loud enough to be insidious and irritating."

Cinemagoers, questioned at the Odeon in Kensington, agreed. "I prefer to come in the daytime when there are not a lot of people around, but most of the time you turn around and do a 'Sshhhhhh!" said Peter Hoskins, 23, a bar worker from Redhill in Surrey. "But it hasn't really worked in the past. I've had to move seats before, because if you go and find the usher you miss a lot of the film. It's just best to ignore them."

Tanya Hetherington, 26, from Australia, who was buying tickets for Mulholland Drive, said: "I've had a fight in a cinema before in Sydney, but that was because the cinema was really small and the seats very close together."

Ernst Malmsten, 31, a writer from Notting Hill buying tickets for Last Orders, said: " It's better to go to the cinema at midday when it's really quiet, but when you go to the cinema and someone is being inconsiderate then it's really irritating. I'm not scared of being beaten up by an irate parent."

Media planner Lucy Glozier, 29, from Battersea, said she often encountered noisy people at the cinema. "It's happened to me lots of times, but the worst was when I went to see Toy Story 2," she said. "It was my fault really: it was during the school holidays and it was in the afternoon. I should have expected it."

James Baird, 25, from Fulham, who works in property management, said: "You pay money to see a film - it's really inconsiderate. I'll ask them to be quiet or report them. I've had a group of kids throw popcorn at me during a film before, but that was a long time ago."

The noise meter was supplied by Berkshire-based Instrument Solutions.