This is not about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars last month. Nobody needs to read more about that. Its swimming in cold water, its how good Succession is: we know, so why hasnt anyone mentioned it before?

But that one rash moment and its afterlife is part of a bigger picture, a sense that something is not quite as it was. Last week, the Hollywood Reporter revealed that the organisers of the Tony awards, the New York ceremony that recognises excellence in Broadway theatre, sent an email revealing they now have a policy for dealing with violent incidents: In the event of an incident, the perpetrator will be removed from the event immediately.

The Tonys, back for the first time since 2020 and celebrating its 75th year, draws no direct connection between this and Smiths actions in March, but surely this has to be the first time that an entertainment awards ceremony has needed to explicitly state that youre not allowed to perpetrate an act of violence while clapping for Moulin Rouge! The Musical.

This protocol is aimed at an audience largely made up of professionals; while I have witnessed how heated feelings can become over whether this or that person more deserved their shiny trophy, the idea that there has to be a plan now for dealing with the possibility of that spilling over into violence is odd, isnt it?

Live entertainment in all forms, cut off during the pandemic, given little support in this country by the government, is now attempting to scratch and claw its way back in a near-impossible landscape. The audiences that feel brave enough to attend events may find themselves in a different world. Comedians talk about a mood shift, post-lockdowns, with audiences behaving badly; last week, Nish Kumar spoke of racist hecklers at his stand-up shows and said other comedians agree that theres something in the water. In an Instagram video, the musician Adrianne Lenker, of the brilliant band Big Thief, said: Try to be mindful of whats happening and pay attention and dont talk.

Trying to manage an audiences behaviour is difficult. It exists on a sliding scale: a sign requesting that a crowd does not take photographs is not the same as an artist berating an audience for not clapping loudly enough, which I have seen before. But after a period away, this seems like a period of great readjustment, in which everyone is trying to find their feet. At least, that is one way to see it, if you want to remain hopeful.

I have written before about how television became a comfort blanket for many over the course of the pandemic, and those big event series such as Bake Off and Strictly were particularly soothing.

On a personal level, Id add MasterChef to that, and MasterChef: The Professionals, although if the former doesnt implement a ban on fondant potatoes in the early rounds soon, I may switch off in protest (its the new scallops, black pudding and pea puree).

Monica Galetti, the tough but fair judge on The Professionals, whose praise is usually the hardest earned but the most valued, announced last week that she is leaving the show, after 14 years. It is with a heavy heart that I have made this decision to step back from filming this years series of MasterChef: The Professionals, she said, though the this years series allowed for a little sliver of hope that she might return one day. She explained that she felt unable to balance filming the show with her family life and her London restaurant. Those in the hospitality industry know just how tough it is at the moment, she said.

There is something sturdy about MasterChef and its offshoots. It is a reliable perennial, despite the odd attempt to tweak the format, and newcomers to food TV, such as Gordon Ramsays bizarre Future Food Stars, just cannot compete with its familiar elegance. Monica leaving The Professionals is like Oti leaving Strictly or Mary Berry, Mel and Sue walking away from the Bake Off. It feels like more than just a personnel rotation and I hope that she comes back soon.

I have never been to the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair, taking place this weekend, though I am imagining it as a kind of Glastonbury for bibliophiles, with all the hedonism yet none of the regrets. The star of this years fair, the Pyramid stage headliner, if you will, is Charlotte Bront, played in the film To Walk Invisible by Finn Atkins, right. In 1829, nearly two decades before she would write Jane Eyre, a 13-year-old Bront compiled A Book of Ryhmes [sic], a handwritten collection of 10 of her poems, sewn into a miniature book, a little smaller than a deck of cards.

It is reassuring that even one of the most celebrated authors of all time could not spell rhyme correctly and I love the teenage petulance of its title page: Sold by nobody and printed by herself, she wrote. The sold by nobody is no longer the case. Last Thursday, it reportedly sold for $1.25m (973,500) to a private collector. This beats the highest price previously paid for a printed work by a woman of $1.17m, for a first edition of Frankenstein in 2021. Funnily enough, that is about what I would pay someone not to read my attempts at writing poetry as a teenager.

Rebecca Nicholson is an Observer columnist

Originally posted here:

Forget the likes of Will Smith. Audiences are also behaving badly - The Guardian