Marny Godden: Best and Worst Audience Interactions

Written by: Marny Godden
Published: Saturday 20th August 2016

Character comedian Marny Godden talks about the best and worst interactions she has had with audiences...

The worst has got to be when, in the last ten minutes of my show Flap 'em on the Gate at Ed Fest 2015, two men got up from their seats and started to walk out and I, dressed as a devilishly handsome Mr. Wilmot Brown, walked over and shooed them towards the door (in character). One of the men lent in towards me in the threshold of the door, with a massive grin on his face looked me in the eyes and said "You're shit. You're so bad." I froze. My heart went a bit funny. Then I realised there was a house of people who were enjoying the show behind me. So I turned round and got on with it. I earned my comedy stripes that day.

I've danced with many audience members and the funniest and strangest of all, was when a man stripped down to just jeans, pulled off his belt, tied it round his neck and handed me the strap...

One of my fondest times was during a game of musical statues, hosted by Mr Wilmot Brown, the finest actor and dancer of London town. I get audience members up but sometimes they volunteer. This time a very chatty 7-year old autistic boy joined me on stage. You could tell the audience were slightly uncomfortable at first because he'd been shouting out a lot, but it didn't knock me at all. He was such a pleasure to dance with and really up for the competition. Wilmot won of course. Wilmot always wins.

During this year's show I show 'John', one of the audience members I name at the start of the show, some dance moves dressed as Wilmot Brown. But first, I say 'We need to fuel our bodies, I like to go with a good old fashioned digestive biscuit'. Then I produce a couple of digestives from Wilmot's trousers and we both stand in silence eating them. I have no idea why, but the audience love this. John on the other hand, looks pretty miserable when he realises how stale the biscuit is.

Another time, me and a man made up the most incredible seamless dance routine right there on the spot! Don't believe me? Should have been there. It was pretty cool and the audience loved it.

One time I came out onto the stage dressed as Moses with a massive beard, clogs, long grey straggly hair and a staff in my hand and, to my delight, there was a man dressed exactly the same (but for real), sat in the front row. I pulled him up onto the stage and the audience had a good old laugh at us both. It was magical, he even had a stick!

I played kiss chase with a man the other day, we ran all round the audience, up the isle and back up on the stage, he was really up for it (or perhaps he was terrified of an ageing pervert, aka Wilmot, chasing him round). Anyway, I let him off in the end because he got so into it (afraid) he started to climb the chairs. I shouted "It's not worth it mate". As he left the gig, my tech pointed out that he had a blind man's stick. I really do know how to pick 'em don't I?!?

Luckily there have been no accidents as yet, and I haven't been sued.

I'll leave you with this: Today I played a human game of 'guess who' with the audience.

To conclude, I'm having a ball and most of the time they are, I think... well, one does try.

'Marny Godden: Where's John's Porridge Bowl?' is at 3pm at Heroes @ The Hive until the 28th August. Listing