Sometimes a heckle is not a heckle, it’s a situation. I was talking recently with a fellow comedian, Alistair Barrie, who reminded me of a gig we both did at the Manchester Comedy Store around 2005, which was interrupted in the most unusual way.
Al was compèring, and I was about 15 minutes into my headline act in front of the audience of about 40 people in the small bar there, when a man appeared at the side of the stage. As the stage is less than five foot square, it was impossible for me not to notice him, but it was also impossible for me to see how he had arrived there in the first place.
‘Can you help me?’ he asked.
I stopped what I was talking about to look at him. The attention of the audience had also shifted to the man, who was now so close that I noticed he was covered in mud up to his thighs.
‘I’ll do my best, mate, but I’m just at work here.’ (I know you can see what I did there – a master at work, oh yes.)
‘I just tried to kill myself, but it didn’t work.’
If you ever want a comment to stump a comedian, throw something like that in. Some of the audience laughed, assuming he was a plant and part of the act, although a look at the expression on my face would have made it clear he wasn’t. Or perhaps they laughed, enjoying the fact that I was completely lost for words. I just thought I would avoid any amusing quips and ask him the obvious question.
‘What did you do?’
‘I jumped into the canal, but I didn’t realise it had been drained, and now I am just covered in mud. Look at me!’
The Comedy Store is situated next to the canal at Deansgate Lock. Once he’d realised he was still alive and had got over that disappointment, he had clearly climbed out of the mud and entered the venue through the side door at canal level.
‘So I thought I would come here and get cheered up.’
There are times as a comedian when people make demands of you that can be hard to fulfil, like when you do a corporate gig and they want you to make a joke about the boss, but that is about as demanding as a comedian’s life usually gets. ‘Can you make me laugh to save my life?’ is perhaps the hardest request I have ever had.
As there was only a small audience, we all felt part of the experience. We gave him a seat in the front row next to two ladies who, although sympathetic to the situation, had not come out to sit next to someone drenched in the sediment that only exists at the bottom of canals in Manchester. They moved, so there was a vacant seat between them and the bridge-jumper, and I continued as best as I could with the gig.
Picking up momentum in any gig after you have been interrupted can be difficult, but doing it after a genuine life or death situation is even harder. It was a struggle but, after a few minutes, I was back into my stride and the audience, including the bridge-jumper, began to laugh at the appropriate moments. At the end I took a bow, everyone seemed happy, and I felt that for at least the duration of the gig I had contributed to saving a life.
As I stepped down from the stage, the bridge-jumper stood up and asked if he could give me a hug. We shook hands instead. I don’t mind saving lives, but I am not that keen in getting covered in canal mud to do it.