Sorry, but I'm not buying into the train of thought that is praising the athlete who jumped on stage during Kylie Minogue's performance at the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony as 'an Aussie legend'. Simpson with his donkey was an Aussie legend. Weary Dunlop on the Burma railway and River Kwai was an Aussie legend. Dr Victor Chang was an Aussie legend. Professor Fred Hollows was an Aussie legend. Dr Elizabeth Hamlin (not sure of spelling of surname, and I'm typing this on the fly, trying to be creative) is an Aussie legend, along with her husband. Dr Fiona Woods, too, is an Aussie legend. In the event that the stage-crasher is reading this, you, my girl, are not an Aussie legend; what you are is a total jackass.
Seriously. She was no better than any idiot that storms the field during a game-in-progress. Also, people have paid money to watch a ceremony that featured Kylie and her back-up dancers, not Kylie and her back-up dancers being accompanied by some twerp with no sense of decorum or manners. These actions are monstrously disrespectful to the performers on stage, who have been choreographed and are trying to concentrate, and then heigh-ho-the-dairy-o, up jumps some clown who decides to dance along, break their concentration, and possibly endanger them as she gets in the way. Seriously, girl, why do you think there is an announcement prior to a performance of a play about no flash photography being allowed (although in this digital age, is such an announcement still done?)? It's because it distracts the performers, who often rely on 'timing' on stage. I should know; I am a bit of an actor, too. My sister told me (she might have been at the performance) of the time Warren Mitchell actually stopped mid-performance during 'Death of a Salesman' when some dunderhead took a photograph, and the offending patron of the arts was removed from the theatre. People who have rehearsed don't like needless surprises. It throws their timing, affects their performance (which affects their egos - trust me, I know. I'm a bit of an actor, too, remember?), and if the performance is compromised, the audience is not getting their money's worth, either. There are many factors to consider before acting like a complete horse's arse and jumping on the stage, or doing something to distract performers on a stage. A few years ago, I was on stage playing a stern, austere police office standing-over a potential witness. Off-stage, simultaneously, characters were meant to be making love as part of the plot. The woman playing the female decided to embellish, and shouted, 'Oh, dah-ling!', as though in the throes of sexual ecstasy. She doubtless thought this funny, and would make the play funnier, and make her performance funnier. It did not. What it did was throw me, and my on-stage co-player at the time. Both of us shot each other fleeting WTF glances as we did our lines. She committed one of the cardinal sins of the stage: needlessly drowned out another player. So the audience missed some of our dialogue, and our performance was compromised. And as someone who likes the smell of greasepaint and the roar of applause, I was truly pissed off at my fellow cast-member.
It is not funny to cut someone else's grass. Unless you are a four-and-a-half year old. When I launched my first novel in 2009, and was reading at podium, my youngest son, then aged four-and-a-half, wanted Mummy. He trotted out the front and tugged on the leg of my jeans as I read, and he ignored the stage-whisper from his dad, who was standing 'stage-right' to 'Come to Daddy and let Mummy read'. He let go of my jeans, fluttered his eyelashes at the audience, and trotted off to his father's waiting arms, as the audience chuckled and cried, 'Oh, bless his heart!' and other such platitudes. This was actually endearing and funny. What that woman did at the Commonwealth Closing Games Ceremony was not.
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