Stage and film actor Steven Berkoff had responded to a claim by writer Giles Coren that theatre is "boring", a nightmare and attracts "dreary friends".
In a list of complaints Mr Coren – the son of Jewish humo u rist Alan Coren – referred to plays starting too late, audiences thinking of pizza and the "full tediousness of these old hams trying to inject life" into classic works.
He said he fidgeted at plays, whereas he could keep his attention on football or cricket matches "because those are actually exciting" and lavished praise on the cinema experience.
"If you want to make the theatre more comfortable," he wrote in his Saturday Times column, "get rid of the stage".
