Heckler Handling
This was in response to a question about what to do if someone’s heckling.
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Heckling usually happens when there’s dead space in an act. I keep my sets pretty tight, so I don’t get heckled much. Even if someone doesn’t like one of my jokes I’m usually on to the next one by the time they think they have something to say. Because of this my advice here is mostly based on what I’ve seen with other people.
The best thing to do is ignore them if you can. Most hecklers are just insecure drunk guys trying to impress their girlfriends who are laughing at another guy. A lot of the time they’ll just say something and then shut up if it’s not responded too.
If that doesn’t work then my general belief is that your response has to originate in the tone of your performance, in the sense that if I’m doing a guitar set with a gentle tone and I go “hey, shut the fuck up” it puts people off because I’ve broken my own set tone, but if I go like “hey, if it’s not too big a deal would mind please… shutting up? That would be awesome. Thanks.” then that usually elicits a little laugh but gets the message across.
But if I’m doing something like a set without guitar and being more loud then I can say something more directed or loud, either straight to that guy or better yet, to the audience about him.
A lot of comics have prepared lines like “Oh, I remember when I had my first beer” or something like that, I don’t have one of those, but one time when someone wouldn’t stop hooting for me when I first went out on stage I was like “Jesus, stop it mom.” (it was clearly a guy). Basically anything that will elicit a laugh and still get across that the person should shut up.
The trap I’ve seen a lot of comics fall into is swatting a fly with a sledge hammer. The drunk guy says something dumb, the comic goes crazy on him, suddenly the audience is alienated or on the side of the drunk guy. Your primary goal in this is to have calm return to the room and keep the audience on your side; the best way to do that it is to get the heckler to realize that the audience likes you and doesn’t like them.
