Making friends through comedy

Heckling is an occupational hazard as a stand up. It's actually quite rare, particularly at small gigs, but you have to be ready for it at all times. However, that readiness can sometimes lead to problems when you take it off stage...

A few weeks ago I was compèring a small gig and it was going well. I was doing the usual chat to the audience to warm the room up a bit before bringing on the first act. I noticed that a couple of women in the middle of the audience were ignoring me and chatting to each other and I said hello to them and asked them what their names were. One of them replied: “I'm not telling you. We’ve been working all week and have come here for you to make us laugh. So tell us some jokes.” Fair point, perhaps, but it was a very aggressive way to react considering the fact that it was a friendly room and I'd already got a few laughs from banter.

I reacted in mock horror and said something like “God, you remind me of my mother!” Not exactly comedy gold, but it worked in the circumstances. However, the woman seemed really offended by that and continued to heckle. I managed to shut her up eventually, but I felt like I'd lost my authority with the audience and the atmosphere had been soured. It slowly turned into a difficult gig and for the rest of the night I didn’t really enjoy it.

Unfortunately the two women hung around at the end of the show. The one I had spoken to came over to me as I was packing away the stage equipment and started complaining about what I'd said to her at the beginning. By now I was tired and just wanted to go home, but she was quite drunk and aggressive and wouldn't stop berating me. Then she said the following sentence:

“You were lucky how I reacted! You were lucky I took it on the chin!”

And I couldn’t resist. I just shot back:

“Which one?”

Now. She wasn’t fat. I don't think I'd have said that if she had been. I’m not sure if that makes me better or worse. But she was obviously not happy.

That was the moment I remembered that I wasn’t a comedian on stage any more, but just a man standing in front of a woman being rude about her appearance.

If I'm honest, the main thing I regret is that she didn’t say that to me during the gig, because then my response would almost certainly have got a big laugh and I would have regained my authority. As it was, she was slightly stunned, and I was slightly embarrassed, although pleased that I'd finally managed to get her back for ruining the gig for me.

I also got away without being attacked, which I thought was quite a result.