Another Prick.

The Christmas gigs keep coming but so far I've yet to be hit with an extremely awful one. It'll happen, of course, there's no avoiding it but so far so good. Last night I started off with a lovely gig at The Funny Side of Covent Garden. The audience were very fun and friendly even though I did get heckled. Just once. By another comedian. Fucking charming. Didn't ruin the gig though and, to be fair, it must be sort of liberating for a comedian to heckle. I obviously wouldn't do it but only because I might not know when to stop once I've started. Then I was off to the very lovely Downstairs at The Kings Head which is one of those gigs that comedians generally look forward to because it's just so very, very nice. But my gig didn't start off that way. 

John Lenahan, the compere, was about to bring me on when a couple returned from the bar after the interval. They confidently and rudely walked right across the stage in front of John and when he pointed out that that was pretty rude the "man" turned to him and raised his middle finger. He gave John a very serious, cold stare which, apparently, he'd given all the comedians that night. What an almighty penis. His girlfriend was utterly embarrassed but with a look that screamed He's always like this. What's the point in coming to a comedy club if you are genuinely without mirth on any level. A comedy club is surely a fun thing not a fucking test. Then when I walked on I saw the same prick talking to another member of the audience. By the time I got to the mic I heard him say "Do you want to take it to the next level?" Now, it has been pointed out to me that they could have been discussing a game of Mariokart but, I suspected from his angry tone, that he was being threatening. Therefore I stopped my set, which hadn't begun yet, and asked to have him chucked out. The audience seemed to be very much up for that idea too and there is something fun about turning a lovely, cosy, middle-class, Crouch End audience into an "OUT! OUT! OUT!" shouting mob in the space of a few seconds. The thing is, as soon as he was kicked out I was overwhelmed with this terrible feeling of guilt. Who the fuck do I think I am that I can just demand that the owner of the club, the very man who will later on give me £12.50 for doing "jokes", throws someone out of his own establishment? What an egotistical prick. Luckily, that audience are really into egotistical pricks because basically my set was the most self-indulgent pile of ME ME ME that you could be unlucky enough to witness but my constant references to the man who got chucked out and, James, the man who got threatened by him meant I totally got away with it. There was even the odd quite funny bit about reclaiming the "giving the middle finger". If I can remember that I might have a bit of new material on my hands but, you know, that won't happen.

I don't really know where a good place to start a fight is but I'd like to think that a comedy club would be one of the less likely ones. But it still happens. The rest of my night was a big booze drunk. I can't help but think that my blog has just turned into a diary over the last couple of weeks. That'll have to change. Maybe Peter Kay will do something tomorrow and I'll be all upset and we'll all be back to normal. In the meantime, please download the latest Collings and Herrin Podcast. It's very funny.