play to the gallery

1. To direct a performance toward less sophisticated tastes; by extension, to attempt to gain approval by crude or obvious means: “The cast of the play was a decidedly mixed bag of youthful method actors and old hams who played to the gallery.”

Idioms and Phrases

Appeal to spectators for maximum approval, as in He peppers his speeches with humor and wisecracks about his opponent, clearly playing to the gallery. In this term gallery refers to the cheapest seats in a British theater and hence the least sophisticated audience. [Late 1800s]

Example Sentences

The network tried to avoid one of CNN’s most obvious missteps, which was to place Trump in front of an audience of partisan fans, thus allowing him to evade questions from moderator Kaitlin Collins and play to the gallery.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Free from the constraints of the White House, its protocols and its officials, he uses the rallies to indulge in free association riffs and play to the gallery.

Read more on The Guardian

“And I play to the gallery. So to hell with the experts. And until I fail I’ll keep on doing what I do.”

Read more on Washington Post

Silva does not pretend to be a great soloist; he does not play to the gallery or for his personal highlights reel.

Read more on New York Times

He does not feel the pull of populism, nor any temptation to play to the gallery.

Read more on The Guardian