When the audience is more remarkable than the show
Sometimes it’s the crowd that prompts the story rather than the act.
Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2024
I’m sure you have all been eagerly anticipating my review of this Year’s Edinburgh Festival and wondering whether, due to the deafening silence here on the subject, I even went?
I did indeed go!
But due to the unprecedented warm sunshine that encouraged us to linger longer in the Grassmarket square, putting the world to rights, we only saw six shows this year!
We were in t-shirts I tells ya! Not even jackets!
It was outrageously hot for Edinburgh in August!
All six of those shows were ‘good’, but not remarkable, and we don’t deal in ‘good’ here, we want ‘outrageous’ ‘fantastic’ ‘unmissable’ or ‘horrific’.
So my reviewer’s cup runneth under, so to speak.
However, one very remarkable thing did happen, which led me to thinking about some of the other times this had happened…
The most memorable show we saw at Edinburgh this year was Rachel Fairburn’s one woman show Side Eye.
I’ve seen her before, doing stand-up comedy, but this was more character based as she moved through seven different personas in the story telling.
I think this show would translate neatly into a film or TV show with her playing all the characters, Eddie Murphy style. Hint hint Netflix!
The most remarkable thing about that particular performance, wasn’t her brilliant portrayal of the vastly different characters, but Rachel’s heroic achievement in keeping it all on track in the last quarter of it, because by that time, a woman in third row’s laugh was getting so out of hand, it was all we could focus on!
The thing is, the woman was clearly having a great time, I don’t think she was drunk, or doing it deliberately to put Rachel off and draw attention to herself.
She just had a HUGE uncontrollable laugh, which in a venue of 100 people, is an even bigger laugh than you can imagine!
Let me help you with that…
Here’s what it sounded like:
I shit you not.
Her laugh was so distinct, that one of my friends spotted it in a recording of another show (for the BBC with a much larger audience), and shared it in our ‘Edinburgh 2024’ WhatsApp group.
After several attempts I think I have it 98% accurate!
How Rachel kept going I don’t know, it must have been very off-putting, but she did and delivered the rest of the show flawlessly in increasingly difficult circumstances.
The thing is, laughing woman was clearly with friends, who, I wouldn’t mind wagering drew straws before each show to see who would sit next to her.
It must be a truly bizarre thing for that group of friends to only ever witness shows doing battle with her laugh!
One of our number, said afterwards, that they’d been to another show last year, with the same woman in the audience and it was equally distracting.
So wherever she goes, that’s always the thing that people are talking about, rather than the show itself.
This got me to thinking about other times when it was the audience members that were even more memorable than the show.
Audience participation
My favourite story of this type and the one I have told the most, was at comedian Frankie Boyle’s stand-up show.
To set the scene for those of you who have never heard of him, he’s a Glaswegian Comedian.
Glasgow, is considered to be Edinburgh’s rebellious ‘fighty, hard nut’ brother.
So one would imagine any stand-up comic from there, would be an absolute master at dealing with errant members of the audience.
In fact his 2010 tour was entitled ‘I Would Happily Punch Every One of You in The Face’.
This is someone who has fuelled his bad boy ‘do you want some?’ image over the years, to the point where I’m sure any audience would be too terrified to interact with him, for fear of a verbal battering!
Back to the show…
We’re about halfway through the first half, and were sitting in the first few rows of the elevated seating (obviously not wishing to run the risk of any kind of audience participation from the stalls) and there was increasing chattering coming from a group of lads about four rows back from us and to the left.
This being Britain, no one actually said anything to those lads, but the tutting and harrumphing was beginning to rival them in terms of volume, from the surrounding punters.
This is going to be bloody great I’m thinking!
All my Christmases!
It’s not often you get a group of roudyish lads at a comedy gig, and it certainly never happens when you’ve got the Godfather of the Headbutt, Frankie Boyle on stage!
This is too perfect! 🎉
There is nothing more satisfying than when a seasoned comic takes on a heckler!
They are trained in this art, after years of being given abuse in the pubs and clubs that served as their Apprenticeship.
Some do it better than others, but let’s face it, any intelligent person would not want to go toe to toe, with any stand-up comedian.
But these were not intelligent people, so our luck was in.
The audience members nearest the Perps were getting more confident with their tutting and murmurs of ‘can’t someone tell them to shut-up’.
Eventually these murmurs, travelled towards the stage, to Frankie!
Yes!
Wooo hooo, we’re in for a treat, who would dare to interrupt a veteran Glaswegian Comic in full flow!!!
He’s bound to pick a fight with them! Oh yes! This is really going to kick off as Frankie reduces them to blubbering wrecks, I start cleaning my glasses in anticipation.
Then the strangest thing happens…
Frankie walks off stage.
The house lights come on.
Security remove the errant lads.
Lights go back down, Frankie comes out and resumes the show, making no mention of what just happened!
Say what?
But, but, but… you said, and I quote, ‘I Would Happily Punch Every One of You in the Face’, did I miss the subheading that said ‘except if any of you are slightly too noisy and annoying?
I have never been more disappointed in a comedy show… and believe me, I’ve seen some utter car crashes.
And now you’re disappointed too, as that was shaping up to be a corker of a story!
Please feel free to write Frankie Boyle a stern email expressing your savage disappointment in what could have been a hilarious anecdote.
I am merely the messenger. 😉
Toodles!
K8x
Join in the comments below:
Have you experienced some strange audience members?
Do you have a ludicrously loud laugh?
Thank you for being here, please ❤️ (below) if you enjoyed this piece, it really helps others find it.
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BWAHA! OMLordt. That would've been irritating to me, too, but fist bump to Rachel for getting through it. But the fact that this woman's laugh has been heard before at another show is HILARE! It's like The Scream you hear in the Star Wars movie and now you hear it everywhere. LOL. But to answer your questions:
1) Have you experienced some strange audience members? I don't think I have. I don't do comedy shows very often, so I feel this is the only place where something like this would occur. I've been to theater shows, but at places like that, you wouldn't DARE act out, y'know?
2) Do you have a ludicrously loud laugh? I have a loud laugh. Don't know if it's ludicrous. Someone once told me I have a Julia Roberts laugh. I'm gonna take that as a compliment.
They should screen people for their laughs upon entry. Just like roller coasters at an amusement park. If you're not tall enough, you're simply not allowed on the ride. If you have a laugh that grates nerves like a cheese grater, nope. Sorry! We're full. My wife and I know a woman who we like until she laughs and then it's just unbearable--it's the kind of laugh that knocks you down and makes your eyes blink as though someone is hammering right beside you. I can't think of the movie Crazy Heart (with Jeff Bridges as a washed-up and whiskey-soaked country singer) without thinking of the dork in front of me shaking his popcorn bag into his face for the entire movie to eliminate hand-popcorn eye coordination.