It began like any other Edinburgh gig. A cellar bar at midnight. An Australian compère warming up the crowd. ‘Anybody here from overseas?’ A voice shouted ‘I’m from Amsterdam!’ in a gnarled Glaswegian accent. It was supposed to be funny but no one laughed. The compère, sensing a challenge in the man’s voice, delivered an instant put-down. ‘So you’re homeless. And you’re a drug addict. Keep your troubles to yourself, mate.’ This got a big laugh, though on the page it doesn’t even look like a joke. Translation: Amsterdam equals drug addict. Glasgow equals homeless. The combination equals big fat loser. With the room jeering at him, the Glaswegian fell silent.
The compère introduced the first act, a Greek comic named Yanni. ‘Anyone been to Greece?’ began Yanni.
‘I’m from Amsterdam.’ The rough slurring heckle came again but the challenge failed, lost because Yanni was struggling with a misfiring microphone cable. He unplugged the mike. As the room was barely 20 feet long he could speak audibly enough, but the technical hitch became significant a few minutes later. Yanni finished his act and the compère introduced the second comedian, David Whitney, a short, powerfully built 30-year-old with a west country burr. Almost before he began he was interrupted. ‘I’m from Amsterdam!’ I turned. The heckler was behind me, a dark, stout, puffy-faced man with a malevolent smirk. He’d taken up a position halfway down the bar which, by some accident of the room’s design, gave him a measure of authority. As the comic started to perform the Glaswegian kept up a stream of fitful interruptions.
It’s tempting to dismiss heckling as part of the rough and tumble of comedy. The heckler can’t be compared with the hooligan who invades the soccer pitch or the streaker who halts the Lord’s Test. But in truth, hecklers are doing something sneakier and far more destructive. The pitch-invader merely disrupts a sporting ceremony to draw the crowd’s attention towards himself for a few harmless minutes. He’s infantile but innocuous. Comedy is an art form and the heckler is a vandal. He’s also a thief who appropriates the audience’s energy and tries to use it to humiliate the comedian and undermine his professional competence. The commonest heckles are, ‘When’s the comedian coming on?’ and ‘Do you know any jokes?’ Sure enough, the Glaswegian used the second of these lines, and the comic replied in kind by telling a story which got a good laugh. He turned to the heckler. ‘Do you know any?’ Silence. More laughter. The comic resumed his patter but within seconds another Glaswegian anti-joke — ‘What do you do for a living?’ — had stopped him again. ‘I would ask you the same,’ said the comic, ‘but I think we know the answer.’ More laughter.
These exchanges were unpleasant but the comic was handling himself deftly, even though the heckler varied his tactics and sometimes kept quiet for a minute or two before intervening at a crucial moment to ruin a punchline. The broken mike gave him an unexpected advantage. A comedian with full amplification can overwhelm any heckler with sheer decibel superiority. But this was a duel between two men with equal vocal firepower.
At the next interruption, the comic rallied the crowd to fend off his attacker. ‘You say you’re from Amsterdam. Well, the door’s just there. Now how can I put this politely? F**k off!’ With a discreet gesture he encouraged the audience to second these travel arrangements. We obliged. ‘F**k off! F**k off!’ Our chants rang merrily around crowded room but the man refused to budge. Lazy and cowardly, like all hecklers, he saw no reason to admit defeat and relinquish the audience’s attention. So he carried on. Next he was hit with a classic riposte. ‘I got heckled at a gig last week,’ said the comic. ‘Bloke called me a c*nt. And I thought yes I am a c*nt. But then, you are what you eat. And you’re a dick.’ This got another big laugh. Though vulgarly phrased, the put-down is elegant. It carries disguised spin. At first it looks like a flag of surrender and a plea for sympathy, (‘I accept your insults, now leave me alone’), but the opening phrases merely soften up the victim for the punchline. The point of attack, as in the best put-downs, is the heckler’s sexual virility.
Still he continued shouting. And suddenly he gained an ally. A man identifying himself as his brother arrived and began to make his loutish presence felt. ‘Another one,’ said the comic. ‘Got anything to say for yourself, mate?’ The brother, who sounded drunk, mumbled something entirely incoherent. ‘Not a surprise,’ the comic said magnanimously. ‘It runs in the family.’ Huge laughs.
The audience was now squarely behind him. Having defended himself stoutly and wittily for ten full minutes, he was being menaced by not one but two bullying half-wits. He was also in complete control of the situation. One minute longer and he would have trounced the nuisances, accepted our applause and departed in triumph. But the gig was over-running and the compère, whose duty it is to apportion stage-time fairly, came on and ended the performance. The room was against this. We desperately wanted to see the silver-tongued warrior deal the final death-blows to his measly, weaselly attackers. But the compère stood by his decision. Time up. The comic was aghast. Defying the compère’s authority was unthinkable, but he lingered silently on stage for a moment, his eyes burning with an unspoken entreaty. ‘Let me finish them off.’ The compère declined. So the comic shrugged and walked towards the exit. His route took him past his chief tormentor.
Before anyone knew it, the Glaswegian was reeling against the bar, shrieking and covering his bloodstained face with his hands. I was three feet away. In slow motion I recall the comic’s broad head tilting backward then whipping forwards — thwock! — into the heckler’s skull just above his eyes. The retort was a crisp, warm, dense, woody sound. By no means a disagreeable noise. In pugilistic terms the strike was superbly executed. It terrified, humiliated and immobilised the victim all at once. Blood sprang from his head and streamed over his clothes and onto the floor. Inwardly I cheered as the beaten saboteur was helped away, whimpering, by two bar-girls. Someone called an ambulance.
Up on stage, the compère couldn’t believe what he’d just seen. ‘Something of a surreal gig tonight,’ he said in his Australian twang. ‘I don’t want to have to do this to the next act but it can’t be helped. Follow that!’ To our amazement the next performer — a middle-aged American comedienne — turned the situation to her advantage. ‘I’ve just stepped over blood to get to the stage,’ she began in her dainty southern voice. ‘Which is ironic. My friends said, “Be careful over in Scotland.” And I said, “Oh there won’t be any trouble. It’s a comedy festival.’’’
As I left, I told the compère I approved of David Whitney’s new crowd-control technique. He disagreed. ‘Out of order. Totally unprofessional.’ Outside, I found the headbutter himself standing, uncuffed, beside a police van. He’d given himself up. I shook his hand and congratulated him on his resilience and courage but he scarcely seemed to register me. He wore a peculiar expression of remoteness and contentment, as if some long-endured source of anxiety had at last been lifted fr om his shoulders.
Officially he’s in disgrace (the Fringe has banned him). Privately I expect he’s the toast of the profession. Potential trouble-makers will think twice before they risk becoming the butt of another funnyman’s wrath. And every comedian has a useful new put-down for hecklers. ‘I’d shut up if I were you, mate. David Whitney’s on next.’
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