Get Your Own Microphone

Andy Martin

There’s a sketch by Penn and Teller that involves Teller being strapped to a table which is stood in front of an audience. He tells jokes that are purposefully bad, and as such, none of the audience laughs. Every time he tells a joke that doesn’t make the audience laugh, Penn inflicts ‘harm’ on him.
Teller has a hand chopped off, he is stabbed, burned and all manner of other gruesome tortures. The illusion is the ‘pain’ that is inflicted on Teller, but the subtext – this is how a comedian feels when they do a joke that falls flat – is painfully true. It’s bad enough when a comedian thinks of a joke that doesn’t make anyone laugh, but when people start to heckle, the pain is multiplied tenfold.

Ok, so you might be thinking that the word ‘pain’ is a bit dramatic, but if anything it’s not dramatic enough. Imagine that you have invited people around for a meal that you have never cooked before, you aren’t a professional chef and you’re nervous about it, but you go through with it because you know that people are coming round and deep down you want them to like it. Now imagine that everyone has eaten and without being asked, they’ve said that they enjoyed it and thought you did well. Now imagine one person saying it was shit. They say the meal didn’t taste very nice and that you should go and try again, or try another recipe. I guarantee that it’s that persons’ opinion you remember. It’s exactly the same being heckled onstage.

As an amateur comedian, having done about twelve stand-up sets, in amongst some roaring successes, I’ve been heckled loads of times. Hecklers fall into two categories: the ones who are shouting stuff out because they think they’re being helpful by joining in with the banter, and those who are just being plain nasty. Both are evil. There’s an unwritten rule in live comedy that it’s ok to heckle, and maybe it is ok, or at the very least it’s to be expected, if not welcome.

When a comedian is being heckled, the atmosphere in the room changes instantly. The expectation on the comedian becomes huge as they are forced not only to reply, but to reply and ‘deal’ with the heckler, either by incorporating what has been said into your act, or by embarrassing them into silence.

As someone who has faced this problem, the ensuing seconds onstage feel like an eternity as your mind races to find something suitable to say. Needless to say, on a few occasions, I’ve been defeated by a few hecklers.

Imagine you are at work doing whatever it is you do, and behind you there’s someone standing and commenting on your every move, but instead of praise, they say ‘well you could have done that better’. And as they see how bad you feel their sense of self worth rises in tandem with your droop in enthusiasm. That’s the whole problem with most hecklers; they do it to prove something to themselves or their friends. That they are better than you. That they succeeded and made you fail. That they tripped you up and stopped you in your tracks.

There is a Seinfeld episode where Jerry gets heckled and it throws him off his routine and it all goes wrong. Later in the episode he accidentally finds out where the heckler works so he turns up and shouts in the guys face. Later he has a conversation with George about how it’s every comedian’s fantasy to do that. (I have to agree).

There are people that argue that it’s to be expected and that comedians should just shut up and deal with it… Those people are stupid, to be quite honest. There, I said it. Heckling is evil and wrong. If your self esteem is that fragile that you need to try and upset people who are trying to entertain you, in order to feel good about yourself, then you should be seeing a counsellor, not a comedian because the chances are that the person onstage needs more validation than you ever will.

Really, think about it, the person onstage is so desperate for love and attention that they have decided to try and do one of the hardest things that society has going for it – making a roomful of complete strangers laugh.

Comedians need hugs, not heckles!

You can see Andy and the rest of the Comedy Republik comedians every 3rd Tuesday of the month @ West Street Live.


Oyster Cult

Olivia Madin

You could…
Self deprecate
Self control
Self neglect
And self patrol

You could…
Analyse
Scepticism
Rationalize
And demonise

But it would take up time…

In which you could….
Breathe
Talk
Sing
Dance
Love
Feel
Empassion
LIVE
….and value

But it’s all up to you.