A BUSINESSMAN has claimed that actors who smoked cigarettes on stage during a theatre play in Barnstaple might have sent out potentially worrying "subliminal messages" to children in the audience.

Financial advisor Philip Milton, from Georgeham, said his family thoroughly enjoyed watching Spider's Web — which was written by Agatha Christie in 1953 — at the Queen's Theatre last week.

"It was an excellent production and it was good to see the theatre full on a Friday night, especially in view of the weather," he said.

But he said the smoking by actors on stage during the atmospheric murder mystery sent out "subliminal messages" to children in the audience, not to mention an "unpleasant smell", and the play would not have suffered if no tobacco had been burnt in the theatre that night.

He said the ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces should now be extended to include theatre stages. "I'm not trying to be a party pooper," he was keen to add.

But Alan Giddings, chief executive of North Devon Theatres, said Mr Milton seemed to be "creating smoke without fire".

Mr Giddings said: "If smoking is part of the performance, it's difficult to say it shouldn't happen. It was very brief and an announcement was made to the audience.

"I don't think it sets a standard. There was no notion it was endorsing smoking and at the time the play is set people smoked like chimneys."

The theatre has extractor fans and there has been no complaints about actors smoking. Mr Giddings pointed out that other elements of plays, including murders, were not thought to influence the behaviour of children watching the performance.

The law states that "where the artistic integrity of a performance makes it appropriate for a person who is taking part in that performance to smoke, the part of the premises in which that person performs is not smoke-free in relation to that person during his performance".

Specialist tobacconists, oil rigs, and mental health units are also subject to varying types of exemption from the ban on smoking in public places. Since July 2007, when the ban came into force, anyone flouting the law can be handed a £50 fine.

The smoking ban has been widely obeyed in North Devon with the notable exception of the former landlady of the Stag's Head in Barnstaple, who allowed unfettered puffing in her pub until she was prosecuted by the district council. A detective found a "tobacco fog" and took secret photographs of customers flouting the ban, including an old man who was smoking "a large pipe". The landlady defendant, Joanne Kendall, was fined £130.

And the question of whether or not it is right for performers to smoke tobacco on stage has emerged elsewhere in the UK. Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, for example, was spotted puffing on a fag on stage in London in 2007; Greenwich Council did not fine him, however, saying it was happy the incident was a "one off".