I was playing a gig recently that was full of people there
to enjoy the night, which they were as all the comics had been on point. The
opener did well and the newish middle acts had been buoyed by the goodwill of
the crowd into an optimal level of performance. In the second interval a guy
arrived and started talking too loudly to the barmaid, his voice cutting through
the chatter of the pub quite clearly.
After the break, as the compere took the stage and restarted
the night, his chattering didn’t lower or cease…a quick look at the guy
revealed that he was clearly drunk. He was mid to late forties, fairly
dishevelled and his wellworn face had the look of many wrong decisions made.
However his body language conveyed a different impression…he
had a swagger in his movements that seemed to be at odds with what one would
assume (amateurly and with prejudice) that his status in life was. Elbows at
his side, his arms were out at right angles and his chin was tilted back,
revealing narrow, scrutinising eyes.
Sure enough, his brain decided that it was time for his
presence to be felt by all.
‘Yeah’ he said to the compere, cutting him off ‘It’s alright
for you to say that’.
The irony being that I don’t think the he’d even heard what had
been said. His agenda seemed to be to get involved, despite having nothing
significant or interesting to say.
He came out with a few more, witless, charmless utterances
before the compere realised that normal tactics wouldn’t operate with this guy
and he had to go into damage limitation mode before the disruptive influence
ruined the atmosphere in the room. Suitably chastised, the heckler skulked by
the bar and was quiet but seething for the rest of the night.
Thinking too deeply about this on the way home, I theorised
that the guy had engineered a situation where his low sense of self-esteem was
re-affirmed. His subconscious mind had cut a swathe through his conscious
brain, which had been reduced to childlike jelly by the amount of alcohol he
had drunk, and told him ‘Hey…here’s a great chance to prove what a wanker you
are in front of everyone. If you do that, the world can confirm to you what you
already know about yourself and then hey presto! You get the self-loathing and
anger that justifies your position in life. The bonus here is, your conscious
mind can blame it on the compere, not take responsibility and then actively not
change your behaviour. Ever.’
Basically, he was never going to win and somewhere deep down
he knew that and threw himself into the situation anyway. This is one of a
number of different types of heckler that you will find at comedy nights all
over the country.
As comics, we have to deal with hecklers all the time. I can
sometimes quite enjoy the experience as it gives me a chance to spin something
spontaneous and new out. Other times I am overwhelmed by the ill-conceived
stupidity of what I’ve just heard...see above.
Many comics find the experience of heckling beyond irritating.
Audiences do as well a lot of the time. I remember dealing with a table of
persistent hecklers for several minutes, thinking to myself, ‘Christ, I’m on
fire here. I’m slamming them. Boom, boom, boom,’ then hearing a woman from
another table shouting out, ‘Is this all it’s going to be?’ I ended up dying on
my arse because I’d stayed on them too long, thinking I was really clever.
They have to be dealt with, but as I’ve learnt, not to
excess. As well as low self-esteem heckler, there are several other generic
types that pop up.
Alpha Male Guy
There are different types of Alpha Male hecklers to be
enjoyed. My favourite is the guy who will whisper his heckle to his girlfriend
/ mate as you are onstage, prompting a loud laugh from an audience member in
the wrong place, normally during a set up. This type of behaviour can be a
result of the male feeling somehow ‘demoted’ by your onstage presence and the
attention you’re receiving, but not quite having the stones to confront you
directly. When questioned on the whisper a standard response is ‘Oh nothing
mate.’ Or the dreaded ‘Carry on.’
‘Carry on’ is the one that gets me the most. The audience
member’s fear at being ridiculed manifests itself in a directive. By telling
you what to do, he in some way assumes ‘control’ of the situation. (I say he,
as I’m specifically talking about an alpha MALE…more about female hecklers
later). As a comic, if you press the issue, a few different things can happen.
1. The guy reveals what he said and you can bust it
open and throw it back at him because it’s shit. Often when someone is
formulating a heckle (or repeating it in this case), there is a syntactic error
or verbal tic that renders the whole thing meaningless. Usually this is because
of nerves on the part of the heckler, overplanning their timing, or
overthinking. At this point, hopefully, the guy takes the beating and doesn’t
keep throwing good money after bad. Unless he’s particularly insecure or drunk,
which will result in a fight to the death. The ‘death’ in this case being his ceaseless
awkward replies to your putdowns destroying the atmosphere, you as the comic
getting emotionally riled to the point where you lose control of the night, or
the guy’s girlfriend or mates telling him to ‘shut the fuck up.’
2. He just clams up and doesn’t say another word
for the rest of the night.
3. The guy’s girlfriend and / or mates misguidedly
get behind him and they collectively fuck the atmosphere up.
4.The thing
he whispered was actually hilarious and gets a huge round of applause from the
audience. At this point, I believe the best thing to do is to give him the win
and move on. Your ego takes a knock, he’s had one of the best experiences of
his life and everyone is happy. This is pretty rare.
In my experience, a persistent alpha male heckler can often
be brought into line by some kind of inclusion, acknowledgement or smile…a
tacit offering of peace by way of a nod in his direction…if you create a ‘you
and me’ sense with the guy or guys, often this is enough of a sacrifice at the
temple of their ego.
(P.s I should know. Like most comics, I am myself a
ridiculous alpha male.)
The Office Joker
This is the type of heckler most discussed on the circuit…the
guy who’s the ‘funny’ one in the office and has probably suggested that a good
idea for a Xmas party would be a comedy night. He has suggested this purely to
provide himself with a platform on which to demonstrate to his friends that he
is infinitely more hilarious than the comics onstage. The difference with this
kind of heckler is that he has probably been training, maybe by heckling his
comedy dvd’s in the privacy of his front room.
If anyone is questioning the assumed confidence that I have so
far in this post that comics will generally deal with hecklers, I have a clichéd
analogy.
Even if you are a naturally strong and talented fighter, you
will lose a sparring session with someone who has accumulated years of training
in their particular discipline. This is the general rule of thumb with hecklers
and professional comedians. The office joker, however, considers himself the
reigning heavyweight comedy champion of his office and he needs a new
challenger.
A common characteristic of the Office Joker heckles is
speed. He will start things off with a generic ‘tell us a joke!’ or ‘when’s the
comedian on?’ and respond to your battle tested counter-strikes with speed and
confidence, but very little content. If there is any content, it is normally of
the following type. ‘yeah, that’s what she said’… ‘that sounds like Dorothy! Ha’
(reference to someone at his work that nobody else in the club knows) or
another pet hate of mine, a repeated ‘What?’
Sometimes this is a good excuse for the rest of the office
to have a go at the joker, as they have no doubt longed to for long periods of
time. Other times (and this is especially pertinent if the joker is also the
boss) they will back their table joker and sometimes can been seen clapping him
on the back after a show for his ‘performance’. A ‘performance’ which has
probably disrupted the enjoyment of every other paying member of the audience
in the room.
This is a guy who would kill to do what you, as a comic, do
for a living. But he can’t. What he’s going for is a sense that he went toe to
toe with you and survived or beat you, because then he can tell himself on some
level that he could have done it, if he’d wanted. He will doubtless tell
himself this anyway.
How do you deal with this guy? Often there is no way but to
completely ignore him. What can be really tough is a room with maybe four
different office Xmas do’s in them. Then you’re dealing with four different
versions of this guy. At the same time.
Hen Party Heckler
Again, a very common topic. The difference in my experience
with stag and hen hecklers is that when a heckler from a stag party is put
down, the guy’s mates are often delighted. You’ve made Stuart look like a bell
end. Well done. Ha ha. With hen parties, you have to be very careful whilst
responding to their interruptions…most times, especially if you get a big laugh
from your riposte, the result is a group
of women bonding together to defend the poor defenceless lady from the horrible
comic.
‘Yeah, she did just shout something nonsensical just before
a punchline, but it’s a hen night! What do you expect mister comedian! Hey! Don’t
slag off my mate and make her feel bad! Yeah, what an asshole. You’re not funny
anyway. Let’s just chat loudly amongst ourselves now until he fucks off. If he
keeps talking about us we can tell him he’s not funny again, or imply that he
has a small dick. Then we can drunkenly complain to the management and try and
get some money off or free drinks, because it’s a hen night.’
But to be honest, I don’t really blame them, no matter how
ridiculous they are. It’s their special night after all! I just think you should
never EVER book your hen or stag night at a comedy club unless all of you are
aware that it will require you to sit down and pay attention to something for
an hour and a half.
Very Attractive Lady Heckler
I’m hot as. Everyone knows it. I’m going to sit in the front
row and get up a lot so everyone can feast their eyes…hang on…why isn’t
everyone looking at me? What the fuck? It’s like I’m invisible. Why are they
looking at him / her? That person isn’t even attractive! Shit, I’d better
remind everyone that I’m still here…
The very attractive lady heckler is an interesting one. Bear
in mind, I’m not generalising about good looking girls in comedy clubs here, I’m
generalising about the type that can’t bear the spotlight to not be on them for
thirty seconds.
The heckles that come out of this situation are some of the
lamest you’ll ever hear. Women who trade exclusively on their looks CAN (can,
not do…and bear in mind again I’m talking about a specific sub-group within the
area of very attractive females) tend to have underdeveloped social skills,
because they’ve never really had to use them. Couple that with the fact that guys
‘always seem to laugh at their jokes’ and you have a devastating combination of
confidence and ignorance. The same is true of men as well, but I haven’t
noticed the same trend amongst really attractive blokes heckling in comedy
clubs because they’re not being looked at.
Other women HATE this type of lady for obvious reasons. The very attractive socially retarded lady
often can’t and WON’T give up until she is taken about by her red-faced partner
or asked by security to please keep quiet one too many times and removed. She
has maybe never faced this level of social disapproval before and can’t accept
being in the wrong, so misguidedly fights against it with everything she has.
Which normally consists of implying the comic has a small dick and/or is ugly,
if male…and well, probably the same with female.
Having said all this, I think some hecklers are great. I
love the ones who go with you on the journey, who play along with you and
respond to your ad-libs in a good natured way. I especially love the hecklers
who, when questioned, turn out to be extremely candid about their private
lives, giving you room, as the comic, to riff with them, show some skills and
set up callbacks.
Fundamentally, at the time of a comedy gig, there is only
room for three or four socially inept ego-maniacs in the room. They are obviously
the compere for the night and the acts gathered backstage. It would be folly to
suggest that the motives driving hecklers all over the world are different to
those which drive us to be comics.
