British Comedy Guide

How To Deal With Hecklers Page 4

Quote: Trabs @ October 21 2010, 12:01 PM BST

Wasn't that Burns one meant to be a set-up? The couple apparently joined him on stage at the end of the show.

Look at the guy next to the woman, some terrible over acting on the facial expressions I reckon.

It is a strange thing to set up.

Yes that's why I ressurrected the thread and mentioned the set-up earlier.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN3W9PE55dw&feature=re%C2%ADlated%EF%BB%BF

Quote: Anorak @ October 21 2010, 10:36 AM BST

Next I'd like to add that while hecklers are a pain, a nuisance, usually drunk, and convinced wrongly they are helping you, they do serve some purpose. Many punters believe comedians are making it up as they go along, I used to get people come up to me and complain they'd heard me tell the same joke a week earlier. For comedians a heckle is more often than not a chance to show that they can indeed make it up on the spot, and nine times out of ten a good comic will shut a heckler up and impress the rest of the crowd along the way.

But yes, when they don't shut up they're a pain.

Then again, there are many stand-ups who are little more/better than hecklers themselves. Albeit legitimised hecklers, because they happen to be holding a microphone and saving getting drunk and needy until after the gig...

If an audience member says something but is not trying to put one over the comedian is that still called a heckle?

I think that anything deliberately said/done which, directly or indirectly, disturbs a performance, is classed as heckling.

I once had a whole 10 minute discussion with Alan Parker - Urban Warrior (Simon Munnery) about politics at a gig, which basically destroyed his whole pre-planned set. Not proud of myself (see every other thread I've posted in) but it did actually produce a lot of laughs - he was brilliant at staying in character and improvising. In the days when I used to (drunkenly) heckle, it was usually confined to acts who were either dying on their arse, or acts which I really liked but the rest of the audience hated. In my naive, drunken way, I often thought I was helping them, by giving them an opportunity to put me down and get a laugh or two. Part of me just hates to see any act just standing there and being basically ignored. (I know those kind of gigs nearly reduced me to tears when I did stand up. Some nights I'd have welcomed a drunken heckler as a chance for redemption/a breathing space.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeFom9csImU

Quote: Anorak @ October 21 2010, 9:36 AM GMT

First I'd like to express my shock and disappointment that Aaron went so off-topic earlier in this thread.

It wasn't against the rules then!

Quote: Anorak @ October 21 2010, 10:50 AM GMT

Darn it. Thought I might be up for a special BCG Award for first person ever to catch out Aaron.

No, no, not at all.

Quote: sootyj @ February 5 2011, 9:55 PM GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeFom9csImU

Jesus, was that real or staged? It can't be real. No heckler is THAT much of a twat, surely? I mean all hecklers are twats but that's just super-twatty.

For real, Johnny is a take no prisoners fella apparently.

Pretty rare though.

I never get that shit.

My audiences have such respect they don't even laugh.

Noel Fielding was getting heckled and he turned to the heckler and said I f**ked your mam
the heckler repliedthat's fcucking origional. He fired straight back. Yeah but you didnt see what position!

geninus ha

I think it's best to just plough throught with hecklers. Don't let them ruin your act if its good enough it'll get through in the end!

REALLY?? You can't have met many bad hecklers. The ones who systematically attempt to ruin your set? Those are the ones who need killing or controlling.

Quote: Nat Wicks @ March 3 2011, 8:32 PM GMT

REALLY?? You can't have met many bad hecklers. The ones who systematically attempt to ruin your set? Those are the ones who need killing or controlling.

killing would be favorable

Quote: Nat Wicks @ March 3 2011, 8:32 PM GMT

REALLY?? You can't have met many bad hecklers. The ones who systematically attempt to ruin your set? Those are the ones who need killing or controlling.

Have you had one?

Have you had one?

Me I had it twice; one laid in to them and once offered to have a wank on stage if they preffered it to my routine.

(nb the second comment was germaine to the material and not a normal example of Sootyj's polite discourse, well unless some idiots sitting on the stairs on the bus and not letting people up)

Both seemed to work

No thank God I haven't yet. I've seen anchor few if them, though. I'm sure I'll get one soon.

Bussell put up some good advice about just being polite

like I always say you can't have a one sided argument

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