Steve and Paul discuss hecklers - you really are not helping!

[00:00:33] and welcome to the latest episode of You Should Have Been Here Last Week, the podcast presented by myself and fellow comedian Paul Ricketts. Oh hiya. This is the podcast that peaks, peeps and pries behind the comedy curtains of our industry to bring you the insights, the gossip, philosophy and the psychology of what makes comedians tick or indeed talk.

[00:00:58] Now this episode is all about the bane and some would say the boon of many alive comedians working lives. I'm talking about the heckle. And there's a reason why we're doing this, we've touched on this before, but there was an incident last weekend at a Peter Kay gig where apparently hecklers were chucked out of his show because they annoyed him.

[00:01:31] Well, apparently the guy was pissed wasn't he? And he shouted out at one of the most famous Peter Kay punchlines, garlic bread. To be heckled by your own punchline, there's something beautiful about that at the same time as well as awful. I know. But yeah, they were forcibly, well I say forcibly because the guy's gone online and he said, oh my arms are covered in bruises.

[00:02:03] But you've seen the footage of it and he's actually just led away, isn't he? He's led away. If he has got bruises, it's because he refused to be led away. And in the end they had to pull him, you know, along the row, out of the row, up the stairs to get out the huge stadium in which this thing took place. He was drunk.

[00:02:25] I do, there's two parts of this. One, that I get shocked by the fact that he and his wife got upset that Peter Kay actually said nasty things to them. Once they've interrupted the show.

[00:02:45] And I find that the most unbelievable thing, that have they not been to any comedy ever before, are they the only people who realise that if you shout stuff out, that the comic might shout stuff back at you? Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things though, those huge stadium shows, it is main, you know, large portion of that audience is the only thing they go to all year.

[00:03:11] And perhaps it's the only comedy thing they've ever been to because they're only there to see the famous comic, aren't they? They wouldn't frequent comedy clubs and know that that's the contract, if you will, between the performer and the audience. You know, it's like saying that you won't pick on them, but if they pipe up, then all bets are off and you can say whatever you like, you know? Yeah, I think most people know that. That's why they don't sit at the front.

[00:03:38] Normally his response to someone shouting out one of his own punchlines was to come up with, once he was being chucked out of the stadium, was to say, garlic dead several times. I mean, that would only be an effective heckle put down if you were a vampire, wouldn't it? What? Yeah. No!

[00:04:09] But yeah, I could understand. I mean, yeah, it's in the heat of the moment. I mean, it's in a way, you know, I was thinking about this, you know, because... He got a laugh the first time. Yeah. I think it was about the fourth time he said it, it was starting to get diminishing returns. And you're starting to think, well, wait a minute, Peter Kane probably doesn't have to put up with hecklers. He hasn't dealt with them for some time. Yeah. I felt like he was, his muscle memory for how to deal with them, perhaps a little bit slow.

[00:04:38] And getting a chair out, so that would annoy Geoff Innocent, he got the stool out to watch them getting chucked out. Well, I mean, I don't blame you for that. But yeah, it's that thing of, with big gigs like that, it's because we were talking about this before, you know, if you paid, I don't know, what, 50 quid? Maybe even more tickets.

[00:05:06] The audience are not going to be tolerant of somebody being a complete dick, are they? And ruining the show for everybody else. You know, I know it's a cliche of the comedians saying your name wasn't over the thing in lights and people haven't paid to see you. But I mean, I think that's very much, apparently when they were being led away, it was a very popular decision, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. He asked for a show of hands and there was at least everyone that sat around them put their hands up. There's a lot of lists as well. Yeah.

[00:05:37] And even though the wife then shouted out, I love you, Peter. I love you, Peter. And to which he said, oh, shut up, Lisa. I think he compared her to, yeah, Lisa Riley. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which she said was incredibly upsetting for her because Lisa Riley is overweight, or was overweight. And she said, well, I put on a lot of weight recently because I've had a baby.

[00:06:06] So I'm very self-conscious about it. So I'm thinking, well, that's the best thing you can do is shout out in the middle of a room of several thousand people with the light being shone on you. And he, well, Peter Kay defends that by saying, well, she does look like Lisa Riley. Certainly. I've not seen a close up photo to confirm this, but I did like that Lisa Riley then got involved and said, I don't consider it an insult to be mentioned.

[00:06:38] I'm a big fan of Peter Kay. And she has lost a lot of weight recently. So, but yeah, the idea that you heckle, you shout stuff out, someone comes back at you and then you go, ooh, ooh, you can't do that. That's mean, which I find it's a bit rich.

[00:06:54] I think, you know, audiences should be reminded about the rules of engagement and that, you know, perhaps people might say some nasty stuff to you when you're annoying a comedian. It could possibly happen. You know, I mean, lots of MCs do warn the audience that don't hackle or you're going to get a load of shit, which I think still does bear repeating. I mean, that's mainly in relation to mobile phones, isn't it? Oh my God.

[00:07:23] You know, don't use your mobile phone or the comedian will take it off you. And, you know, you don't want to know what's going to happen next. Well, yeah, I mean, unfortunately, in this case, well, fortunately, in this case, that the person who did film it from eight miles high at the top of this stadium made a fortune out of it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Initially, he stuck it on YouTube, but then the sun contacted him and made him an offer. He couldn't refuse.

[00:07:53] So we took it off YouTube, stuck it on the sun, you know, in the sun website for hopefully big money. And thank God that he did film it. Otherwise we wouldn't be talking about it. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's the thing as well. I mean, in the world of social media now, there's loads and loads of, I mean, it's become a subgenre of people posting stuff, isn't it?

[00:08:16] Well, it's been a bit of a back and forth with the audience.

[00:08:46] And then suddenly a load of people, they start shouting back at you. Don't you know what she's been through recently? You can't say nasty stuff to, you know, Alison. She's had a tough time. And I'm thinking, I don't know this. All I know is she's turned up, been annoying at this gig. And I have, in the last 18 months, reduced a woman to tears on her birthday by telling her to shut up and saying, this is not all about you.

[00:09:17] And then she was in tears. And her friends were going, well, you've upset her. And I'm thinking, no, she's upset everyone else in the room as well as me. And all I've done is told her to turn it in. And now she's bringing the tears. So the other thing that I found quite interesting, it's a stadium gig. Someone shouts out a punchline.

[00:09:38] Isn't it similar to, let's say, a Paul McCartney fan standing up at a McCartney concert and shouting out, oh, bloody ya, blood ah, in between every song? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's going to catch on. It could become a thing, isn't it? You know, people chanting in stadiums their favourite punchlines of major comedians. You know, what are the chances of that? Yeah. Oh, this parrot is dead. Oh, wait a minute.

[00:10:08] I think it actually happened. This parrot is dead. Yeah. And people are going, oh, I hope he does such and such. Yeah. Well, I mean, people do in a way. Hmm. I mean, what do you call it? When the comedians got a famous routine, Ben Olton once did say that, you know, he used to do a famous routine about when people rush onto trains and one of them was just got a double seat. Yeah, double seat. Double seat. And he said that if he didn't do it, people were pissed off.

[00:10:37] You know, when they'd come to see him, they'd go, oh, what happened to double seat? Well, I don't do it every... Yeah, it's really interesting, that. I mean, in a sense though, it's not the same, is it? Because in a way, I suppose if you get to that level, then people expect it. But if you're going to a gig and then you played the same place, like six months later and did exactly the same material and there was the same audience, they'd get pissed off. Yeah. Whereas if you're really famous and at a certain level, they just said they want to hear the greatest hits, you know?

[00:11:05] Well, I mean, it's a sad case of Eddie Izzard, who got sued by a member of the audience by doing the same set in his new tour. Yeah. Because this person didn't realise that that's how he starts his new tour, with the old tour and then works the new stuff in along the way. Hey, by the way, talking about that, I've got to tell you this, this is one of my favourite heckles of all time. I'm not going to say who it was, but they were kind of a special act and they used to play a lot of junglers and they were doing Camden junglers. I think I've told you this.

[00:11:36] And they used to have a special hand like that. And of course, they've done it over and over again. And they'd never changed the material for like 20 years. And they were doing it. And then of course, the hand is like that. We've got a life. It goes here, here, ladies and gentlemen, moving down towards his crotch. He goes, what do you think I should use this hand for? And there was a tiny pause and someone just went, you could use it to write some fucking new material.

[00:12:05] I'm coming back from that because the bloke would sort of go, no, no, what should I do with it? Oh God. That's fucking devastating, isn't it? Oh God. Well, no, it's the question, isn't it? You've got to be careful when you ask the question. That the audience might come back with something. Something really funny. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:12:34] I mean, you know. But that's the difference though. Is that a heckle? Because that was actually asked for. And I think that the heckle is something where no one's asked for it. Someone just shouts some stuff out. So there isn't, the act hasn't given you an in. Yeah, that's true. Although in a way, if you leave any gaps, yeah, then people will respond. That's true. Yeah. It depends where you are, of course.

[00:13:01] But I mean, you know, there's places on the circuit that were infamous for terrible, horrible heckles. And one of them was up the creek in the old days and the tunnel, you know, they used to be. But their famous heckle was, which is a horrible one, which is almost impossible to come back from. And people just go, taxi! Well, yes. If you're having a bad one, that's horrible. Yeah. What can you say? Well, I don't want to take a taxi. I don't.

[00:13:31] Oh, God. What I like about it, it's not aimed directly at the comic, is it? It's aimed at someone, some other person. Taxi for the comedian! Yeah. Best version of that I've seen, because it spread from there to everywhere. Yeah, it is. It's just that thing that you can shout.

[00:13:51] And gig in Maidstone, a famous gig where it was just one act on his own, does 40 minutes in this really weird pub, where half the people in the pub couldn't see you and were watching you on a monitor. Oh, yeah. Was that the one with the fake brick wall behind it, wasn't it? Yeah. The fake brick wall. Yeah, I know the one. A fake little stage that was painted by the local scouts. Oh, yeah. So, um...

[00:14:20] And that went on there and died, like lots of people did, for the 40 minutes. At one point, because they've got several animals owned by the landlord, landlady actually in this case, and the dog walked across him as he was on stage dying. Walked across, stopped, looked at the act. And if a dog could shake his head... The dogs are like...

[00:14:49] Yeah, yeah. And the other thing about this gig before I get to the end of this story is that when you finished it, if you didn't drive yourself there, you had to basically get a lift to Maidstone East, which was the last train out of Maidstone. So, uh, that had to be arranged before you went on to get this lift.

[00:15:10] So, uh, anyway, dog walks across, stops, shakes his head, and the stage is also right next to a door that leads out to a beer garden. So, the dog looks at him and then walks on towards the door, and luckily for the dog, the door opens. The dog walks out, gets around, and applause for that. The people watching then applause the dog leaving.

[00:15:40] Oh, my God. The best response of his whole set was his dog walking out. And then a man walks in who's a local, um, uh, cab driver who goes, taxi for the comedian. Oh, God. That... Yeah. Ha, ha, ha, ha! Go on. That is fantastic. The comic just looks at all of this, uh, is, as I said, the place is in uproar because it's so perfectly timed. Yeah.

[00:16:10] And he goes, yeah, yeah, it's me. Just walks out. Walks off. Yeah. Ha, ha, ha, ha! The hack was formed into sort of like, you know, three or four different categories. There's the really horrible, violent ones, aren't there? You know, fuck off your shit. I hate you. Or there's, there's the playful ones, which are often, you know, very funny in themselves, isn't there? Yeah.

[00:16:34] But in that, if a heckle is funny, I think any acts shouldn't really get angry and, uh, repeat the heckle to the audience. Get an extra laugh of someone's funniness. Yeah. And go with it. Um. I mean, you have to, because otherwise, I mean, the whole purpose of the heckle in a way is, is to provoke the comedian to some sort of reaction, isn't it? Yeah. Um, and I've seen acts do this recently, lose it with the heckle.

[00:17:05] Uh, and once you lose it, where an act's really going, what's the matter with you? What are you doing? Why are you just shouting stuff out like that? Yeah. And then go back to, so anyway, I was saying to me about that, and you know, you can't go back into your comic persona if you've lost it, especially if you've really lost it. You can't go back. You could argue that, um, yeah. And the third category I was going to say is just like random shit that when a heckle is just off, they're out of their faces, you know, you know, it's nonsense.

[00:17:35] But I also wanted to talk about the fourth one, which all comedians fear, which is the malevolent one, which is, I'll tell you, Phil Gubitus once told me he was on, and in the, back in the days when you could sort of like double and treble. He was on the comedy store in between opening somewhere else, doing the store, going somewhere else and coming back in.

[00:17:54] And he's at the last show. And there's a guy in the front row, and Phil's like rattling along. He's just tired. He's done four gigs, you know, and some guy leans forward and goes, uh, excuse me, mate, you've already done that, Joe. And then just led back like this. And Phil did the classic thing, like mouth dried up, sweat, clammy palms. And then he goes, and he thought in his head, he was going, have I, have I done it? Because I've done four gigs. Oh, shit.

[00:18:24] And then the guy leaned forward and this is fucking chilling. He just went, well, mate, I might be joking. Like that, sat back and go, and every comedian I'm telling him, he goes, oh my God, that's like, he knows the secret. It's like someone who used to do it, he's gone rogue. And we're thinking, you know, what power they have. They could just go to every comedian's giga. And they've done that callback. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's fucking horrible, isn't it? Yeah.

[00:18:51] I mean, it reminds me an actor who I also won't mention the name of, doing a similar situation. And he'd taken on this group of lads in the first show, early show. And then he'd gone off and done another show. And then he'd come back for the late show.

[00:19:10] And the same two of them had basically stayed and come back for the second show and then shouted out his punchlines at the end, just before we got to them, all the way through his set. Oh my God. See, that is it. That's evil. That is evil. And the fact was then that the promoter said, well, obviously that material is getting old, that material.

[00:19:37] And he goes, no, no, they'd come from the first show and come back to the second show. He goes, no, you really need to rewrite that stuff. Oh, that is, I mean, the intent of that is just like, that's commitment from the hacklers, isn't it? You know? Yeah. You hope that they didn't pay to go into the second show. Maybe they did. I think they did. I think they did pay.

[00:20:04] They basically decided to stay and screw this up because he said he had a conversation with them at the bar after the first show. And he'd taken them to the cleaners a little bit. They'd come out. Yeah. He'd come back at them. He had a drink with them. The faux bits like, oh yeah, we were helping you out. I know you fucking well weren't. You weren't helping me out. You were trying to think it was about you. And now I've taught you a lesson. This isn't about you, but, you know, I'll share a drink with you. Uh-oh.

[00:20:34] And it was enough for them to go, well, yes, how could we screw him up then? Oh, Christ almighty. There is one story I could tell, but I do have to mention the name of the comic because it wouldn't work otherwise. Okay, go on then. Dominic Holland doing a gig in Essex, which is a bad start. Well, and, you know, he's got this material about his son becoming Spider-Man. Oh, yeah, of course.

[00:21:01] And now that his son is so successful and earning so much money, there's really no need for him to be doing this gig. And that's the sort of the punchline. He goes, I don't even know why I'm here. And at the end of it, so he gets to that bit. He says it. Normally he gets a good laugh. But in Essex there was just silence. And then a bloke just went, so why don't you fuck off home then? I mean, that is brutal.

[00:21:32] Yeah. It was always a chance it would happen. And one day it did. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's just funny that, because comedians do swap stories about heckles, don't they? Which we've heard some absolute pearlers, you know. I mean, I heard a great one that Ed Bermott's told that he was doing an Australian show in the Adelaide Festival. And some pissed couple were in the front row, very like the Peter Kay thing.

[00:22:01] And they were heckling all the way through. And then about, so it was an hour long show, it was a one man show. And about 20 minutes in, they just fell asleep. And inside Ed's going, oh, fuck yes. And then right at the very end, the last fucking two minutes, the woman from the couple woke up, looked up, blearly, and he's like just wrapping it up. And she just went, oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:22:34] Fucking place just went, you know. What a fucking bridge. There's no coming back from that, is there really? Because in a way, it is blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, it's all made up. Essentially. There was one on Facebook recently. I can't remember which comic. The comic just wrote the story. And it was in December. Yeah, it's on that night where it's the toughest night of the year. The last Friday in December. Yeah, Black Friday or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[00:23:03] So it was some sort of gig in a venue, out-of-town venue. And it was all bookings from offices. And there was one group was something like six people. And the rest was about, there's 15 other people. So it wasn't a big gig. But they've all paid good money to have this special Christmas show. And the group of six were really annoying.

[00:23:33] Really, really annoying. To the point that after the first act had been on and they had an interval, people were saying to the organisers, why don't you just get rid of the six people? Well, we can't. They booked. They paid money. And the other 15 were going, look, but we don't want to continue watching this show with that six. They're talking. They're interrupting. They're heckling. They're just horrible.

[00:24:01] It goes, well, there's nothing we could do about that. It goes, and then someone said, well, why don't you tell them the show's over? Well, someone did. Someone went up to them, told them, actually, the show's finished. Thank you. That's the end of your Christmas show. They didn't seem to mind so much. And then the rest of the 15 and the other acts convened in another room. That is brilliant. And continued the gig without them.

[00:24:31] But what happened was that the bar that the six were in closed early because they couldn't be bothered to serve them. Oh, God. And then they're suddenly walking out to the car park to go home. They suddenly see everyone else in another room. And there's a couple of them looking through the window. As the gig's continuing, they go to the door. But by that point, someone had run to the door and locked it so they couldn't get back in. Banging on the door.

[00:25:02] Wow. That's fantastic. I mean, it's like the old thing where a band would pretend to have broken up just to get rid of one member. Yeah. Yeah, mate, we've broken up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're not together anymore. I mean, I love stuff like that. I mean, it's interesting looking at the psychology of the heckler. I mean, are they all completely not a wankers? I mean, most of them are, aren't they? Or are they? It depends, doesn't it? It depends.

[00:25:31] Sometimes it's over-exuberance. And as you say, sometimes it's just that they've suddenly thought something really funny and they're thinking this is the place to say it. And up to a certain degree, it is. Other times there's malevolence about it. Sometimes it's just people who don't want to be there. It's back to that one, that old favourite, dragged along by somebody else. Yes. Yeah. So, no, I think it's different.

[00:25:59] I don't hate all heckling. You can tell what sort of heckler it is pretty quickly. Yeah. I mean, there's, yeah. I mean, the classic one is, you know, for people who are thrown out for heckling. Well, what's going on? I was just enjoying myself. You know, why can't you heckle a comedy club? Well, you're actually screaming, you're a cunt. You're a cunt. You know, that's not, oh, what's the world coming to? Yeah.

[00:26:29] You can't say anything. We have said this before, but, yeah, obviously comedy is not like theatre. People are not going to be shouting out in Shakespeare play, you know, heard it. To be or not heard it. Yeah. To be or not to be. Be! I mean, heckling Shakespeare, I think it'd be really good. I think it'd be.

[00:26:58] Well, apparently, well, when you think about the original Shakespeare, places like The Globe, of course, there would be the groundlings, et cetera. They would heckle. Yeah. They would join in the performers. Well, they were too busy eating oranges, weren't they? Yeah. Or admittedly, they might be thrown out and stabbed. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, one of the things that is increasingly prevalent, of course, in life, in comedy, is that a lot of hecklers are on performance-enhancing drugs, aren't they? As in the prevalence of cocaine, coke's up.

[00:27:28] So in previous times when coke wasn't so cheap and readily available, you'd put somebody down and that would be it. But now it's like whack-a-mole, isn't it? You know, they're going, I'm important, what I've got to say matters, blah, blah, blah. Put them down, blah, blah, blah. You know, it's like they don't stop, do they? Yeah, so there's not much you can really do about coke's up. No, I've been there with the coke's up lot.

[00:27:55] And apart from the fact they sometimes invite you to the toilet to join them, and you're like, no, I don't want to hang around with you arseholes any longer than I have to. I've seen one of the acts in a situation doing a gig in Basingstoke near the train station, and it only had a group of about nine women. And the women were pissed up in this particular case. Yeah.

[00:28:23] Coked up, pissed up, and were heckling the MC. And then the first act went on. No, it's the middle act. The middle act went on, and she decided, after she was heckled, that the best thing she could do was to walk off the stage and join them. I have never been more disgusted with a fellow comic than that night when she did that. She just walked off, decided, oh, I can't win.

[00:28:53] I'll just laugh with them. And then heckled the next act that came on. Wow. Bloody hell. I've never heard of that happening at all. That was horrible. And we had to travel back on the train, and I did end up talking to her and saying, look, what you've done was out of order. That's why the other acts aren't talking to you. Because you can't switch sides. It's just not. Pick a side. Pick a side.

[00:29:22] I'll join the audience. You can't do that. I know. I mean, it's interesting about that, though. Sometimes I do enjoy it when you'll get self-policing audiences as well. Because people are, you know, if someone's been an absolute dickhead, sometimes the audience will turn on them, won't they? And it's nice to see. I saw a gig at the Glee Club in Birmingham once with Andy Robinson comparing. And some bloke in the audience was from Dover.

[00:29:51] And he's having a bit of banter with him. He went to another member of the audience. And the bloke from Dover made some sort of racist comments. And Andy Robinson said, excuse me, where are you from again? And before he could say anything, someone from the audience went, the 1930s. The whole fucking place just went boom, like this.

[00:30:16] And Andy Robinson put the mic down and just went, that, listen, mate, that was fucking, the timing of it as well. It's just, that's why sometimes you do get heckles where they almost, it's almost like a comic themselves doing it. They listen for the gap and the timing is just like an exocet missile, isn't it? Yeah. But I like a bit of audience on audience heckling. It's, yeah. Yeah.

[00:30:44] Sometimes you just stood there watching the audience take each other apart. Yeah. I don't mind that so much as long as it's coming. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's nothing better in the way than people being let out and the whole audience going, cheery, cheery. I do like that as well. That was Peter. Kay was trying to get that going when they were chucking out these two people and he was trying to get a chant going, but he picked a tune that no one knew what it was. So they couldn't join in.

[00:31:14] It wasn't like, chuck them out. I think it was chuck them out, chuck them out. That's what he was going for, but he must have forgot the melody. The audience were going, no, I don't know. Instead of joining in, they're going, I don't know that one. What's he talking about? It's interesting that, by the way, that people still do sing cheerio. It's an expression that people don't use in real life anymore, cheerio, isn't it? But in the context of someone being fucked up for comedy, you know, it's, yeah.

[00:31:43] I mean, in a way, we're kind of getting off heckling into unruly behaviour in the audience. It's a different subject, isn't it? Yes, it is. I mean, I've got one last thing then that I think should never happen, but I've seen happen. It is the promoter heckling the acts. Oh, God. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've had that as well. Or even the emcee heckling an act, which I've seen once. And it was my gig. I wasn't emceeing it.

[00:32:14] And I can't even say who was, because she'd be upset. But, yeah, final act was on. A fight took place in the audience, and I had to go out and stop this fight. Then he said, you know, what's going on? And someone's shouting at him, there's a fight going on because you're shit. And he's going, well, can't you see I'm trying to do comedy here? And then the other person shouts out, stop trying it and start actually fucking doing it.

[00:32:43] Fucking hell. And then, at that point, the emcee walks back into the room, walks behind the act, and looks at the audience going past them and goes, has she said anything funny yet? Oh, my God. Wow. He was livid. Livid with us. Oh, that's unbelievable. Yeah, that's incredible.

[00:33:09] I was told a story by Ben Norris once he did a corporate for a very big company in Brighton. And the CEO of the company, who everybody hated because he was an absolute wanker, had installed a mic backstage from which he was stood there backstage, heckling all the acts in the middle of their act. I mean, he told me as well that at the end they had to, he brought them on stage and he was asking the audience who was the best.

[00:33:39] Oh. That is just, I mean, that is asking to be chinned, isn't it, really? I was going to say about Peter Cave, the last thing I was going to say about it was that audience members who might be listening or watching this should realise that you can be chucked out of a comedy club. And I would say I wish it happened more often.

[00:34:06] Yeah, well, you know my feelings on the matter. I think it would be great if sometimes we were just given a little mini taser, you know, and people would just go, blah, blah, blah, blah, and just go, I'm sorry, what was that? I'm not advocating that, obviously, but, you know, some people do deserve it. I'm quite happy for some member of security to have the taser and just, you know, suddenly appear at the end of a row. I know.

[00:34:32] I mean, because that, we were talking about that, that's another thing, because you did allude to that earlier on about sometimes venues, because obviously we're living in straightened times and they do need the money, but I do think sometimes that venues should be more proactive about chucking hecklers out, not letting them stay, because it just sends the wrong message out to the rest of the audience, doesn't it? I did a gig where four men turned up dressed all in black, this is in Brighton,

[00:35:02] and they were all in their 50s and were determined to take every act down. And they took down the MC at the beginning. The MC had his heckle put downs. You could count, he'd used up six of them, and I'm thinking, he won't have more than six. And that was true. He had no more than six. And they just kept coming. They took the first act down and she left in tears.

[00:35:33] And then I was going on in, I think, end of that section. And as I walked on stage, they were just rubbing their hands with glee that they were going to come for me. And I decided I was coming for them. So I walked off the stage and started going, the thing is, I've noticed you four coming. And I pointed to one of them. I said, you're a gingerhead c**t. You're a fat c**t.

[00:36:04] You're an ugly c**t. And when I went to the last one, I said, you're the worst of all. And he goes, why? I said, all your mates are c**t. And I said to her, I said, look, I've seen what you've been doing. I don't know what the hell's going on here, but you've come here to destroy the night. And I'm going to say to you, come and talk to me downstairs at the interval. And I'm going to, you know, I will tell you, I've already told you what I think of you, but I'll tell you over a pint. Because my thing was, get them out of the room,

[00:36:34] save the rest of the night. Yeah. And they did. They basically bought me a drink. Turns out they'd all been to a funeral and decided that the best thing they could do in memory of their lost comrade was to ruin a comedy night. Why would you do that? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. That's just f**king bizarre behaviour. Yeah. The best post-wake funeral thing you could do, go to a comedy night in Brighton. Yeah. But anyway, they stayed with me.

[00:37:03] And they wouldn't get, the bloke wouldn't chuck them out who ran the gig because he didn't want to give them the money back because he wanted the money. What was wrong with chucking them out and keeping the money because they behaved badly? Where's that? Oh, they were four big blokes in their 50s and he didn't want to take them on. And they were all dressed in black. He thought they might be gangsters or something. Yeah. Members of Reservoir Dogs. Yeah. That's exactly it. If you got them all, white shirt, black tie, black suit,

[00:37:32] he went that way with it and thought, oh, no, no, I can't touch them. No, I mean, one of the best things I've ever seen was at the stand in Edinburgh one year. I think it was like 2017 and Martin Moore was comparing and it was one of those late and live ones and it was tasty. It was very feisty. But there was one particular dickhead who just heckled everyone else just like wouldn't stop. Martin Moore did that brilliant thing. He goes, hello mate. He says, come on, come on, come here. One of the words he said, you know,

[00:38:01] what are you doing? What are you doing? And the guy was like, oh yeah, really drunk. So Martin put his arm around and he goes, come on, come on for a wee smoke. Fancy a smoke? Oh yeah, I see. Come on for a wee smoke. He took him out to the door with a fire escape. He took him out. And just fucking locked the door. The guy's like this. But after a while, he just gave up and went away and the whole fucking audience, it was brilliant. Brilliant. The way he did it.

[00:38:30] This is in the interval. So we'll finish this up. We'll finish this particular episode. As usual, I will tell people that, like, I'm going for the likes. What's that? A very loud dentist I live next to. It's just... Is that true? No.

[00:39:00] Is someone working on the street outside? Obviously that's not a dentist. That would be... That would be fucking horrific, wouldn't it? Yes. Is it safe? It does drill drill. But yeah, we'll have to fit it in. It's just suddenly started. Oh no. No. Ironically, by the way, that is quite an effective heckle, isn't it? Yes, I've been heckled. There's a guy outside the street going, oh,

[00:39:30] this is fucking shit. Shh. Oh God. So... What? Yeah, we'll try and get it in now then. So, yeah. So, likes, shares, tell your friends, subscribe. We've actually got over 110 subscribers now. 126. I've seen this in other sort of online offerings that they say, well, I've noticed that only 33% of our subscribers

[00:39:58] are listening to any particular show or watching it. But I've noticed in some of our shows, we've actually got plus 100% of people. That's good. It's because this is addictive. This show is addictive. Yeah. We are apparently one of the best, but least known, comedy podcasts. Someone got in contact with us, a company called Feedspot, and said that, I'll check it out actually,

[00:40:25] said that we are number 21 in their comedian podcast list, which is good. 21. But in their funny podcast, we're number 32. Well, that is a heckle as well. I know. Talk about niche heckle. And then sent me an email going, you must mention this on your show. And it took me ages to think, should I?

[00:40:56] Number 32 in funniest, but number 22 in terms of just a podcast with comics on. But I've mentioned it now. They said I should also put the link in our description. I don't know about that. I might wait until we get a bit higher. I might send them a bit higher. I've mentioned you, but until we get higher, I'm not going to put the link in. You do something for me. We mentioned at the end of the last podcast

[00:41:25] that I'm going to do different music. If you've got any genre, music genres that you want the theme tune to be changed to, put it in the comments. We also have an email and you can send it to us or you could also tell us on social media. So you'd be prepared for someone to specify German techno of the 1990s. Oh, funny enough, that was the first band I was in. There's a band called

[00:41:55] Ganzite doing German techno. You actually picked a strong point for me. I hope it helps. We do have a live show coming up in also late, later in the year, in October. I actually received my first bit of money. Woo! I've got £2.50. Yes! So whoever that person is, thank you so much. I will spend it wisely on drugs and drink. Yay!

[00:42:28] Oh dear. I think they seem to have finished, the dentist has finished outside, so he's... There's a guy with a huge mouth, gaping hole for a mouth, gushing blood. Yeah, sounds like they're just basically putting in his fillings with punches. That's it. Oh, I'm going to go. So, yeah, we should say, yeah, that's it. We'll say goodbye. Bye. Bye-bye.

[00:42:58] Bye-bye. This podcast is part of Podomity, the UK's podcast comedy network. Why not laugh at what else we've got?

[00:43:26] Visit Podomity.com.