Standing ovations are mini-riots, writes PETER CRAWLEY,

This is how riots happen. In any given crowd, a small faction is predisposed to break up into disorder. Such people will wage chaos at the slightest provocation and opportunity. In the same crowd, there is an equally small number who will not riot under any circumstances. If trouble flares, they would rather go home.

For those of us who like to think we are insusceptible to mob rule, the studies of behavioural scientist Leon Mann don’t make for comfortable reading. The vast majority of us will do whatever the vast majority are doing. “Their willingness to riot depends on what other people in the crowd are doing,” Mann wrote. If cool heads prevail, then, you’ll probably go home too. If the hot heads are in ascendance, chances are, you’ll throw that dustbin through the nearest window.

This is how standing ovations break out too. As soon as the play ends, a minority of people may shoot up from their seats. While others are puzzling over that final monologue, or are overwhelmed by an emotional set-piece, or have simply woken up now the musical is over, the standing ovators hold their ground.

In their near vicinity, a few people join them. Many people are now unable to see the stage because their view is obstructed. They stand up too. We now have a cascade effect.

It is considerably harder to resist a standing ovation than

it is to join one. What sort of approval-thrift killjoy do you have to be to stay in your seat when the people in front of you, and to your left are standing and banging their hands together? Maybe they saw something in the play that you didn't get? Maybe they're smarter than you. Do you really want to be the only person who didn't love this four-hour Kathakali adaptation of The Da Vinci Code? Do you? Stand up, idiot!

The other day I was at the opening of a new play which received a standing ovation. It was the fourth production to get a standing ovation on opening night this year, which itself is unusual. The young man beside me was the first person to stand. He had also been the first person to doze. I was intrigued.

A number of productions have recently started referring to their standing ovations in their marketing strategy, including references to it in their advertising, and reporting them to the media. One writer reassured the cast that, even if the reviews were bad, the standing ovation transcends the entire critical establishment. Well, it should – just as genuine word of mouth will always save a play that has been under-praised or kill a play that has been unjustly lauded. That is real crowd control.

But with something this easy to manipulate and this hard to resist, the standing ovation has lost its lustre. The five times or so that I’ve either joined one, or led one, or stood alone, really mean something to me. But the act itself is meaningless. If a standing ovation means something to you, then either jump into it with your heart in flames, or sit down and fight the herd. Neither option is passive. Both involve taking a stand.