Jimmy Carr firmly put a heckler in their place – out of the door – at his Birmingham gig on Sunday evening, it is reported.
The 8 Out of 10 Cats comedian, 52, was forced to intervene in an audience spat after a heckler annoyed their neighbours so much a punch was thrown.
Just last month, Kay ordered for a man to be removed from the audience after he repeatedly shouted, ‘Garlic bread!,’ during the comedian’s show.
At Jimmy’s show, audience members sitting next to the heckler threatened to walk out and one of them – a man – was reportedly held back by his partner after he appeared to aim a punch at the rowdy individual.
After being alerted to the commotion, Jimmy stopped his show and told the four fans who were threatening a premature exit to take their seats. He then directed his signature no-nonsense delivery to the heckler, who was sitting in the front row of the first tier.
An onlooker told MailOnline: ‘Four people got up to leave and one of them had to be held back from hitting the heckler.
‘Then Jimmy intervened, he told the four fans to sit down and said to the heckler, “You’re blind drunk, you’re probably on cocaine, so I’ll give you three choices.
”’You can either get up and leave, go away and come back and see me again, or you can sit there, refuse to go and I’ll get security”.’
Unfortunately, the audience member refused to budge and Jimmy was forced to call over security, who escorted the heckler – and his female companion – out of the Birmingham Symphony Hall.
The eyewitness added: ‘Everyone started cheering and Jimmy referred to the Peter Kay incident a few weeks ago.
‘”There must be something in the water at these comedy gigs at the moment.”‘
This is part of a trend, Metro discovered in an investigation last year.
In the past few years there has been an increase in the threat of violence for comedians from audience members – and the trend goes deeper than being a side effect of the pandemic, as initially suspected.
‘I had to leave a gig in Leicester once because this woman was gearing up to glass me in the face,’ Fern Brady revealed. ‘This is not unusual in British comedy.’
Co-founder of Comedy Bloomers Kuan-wen Huang recalled how one audience member came up to him during a break at a gig and accused him of ‘lying about living in Bermondsey’.
‘The violence thing is true,’ he said. ‘Everything after Brexit is a bit weird. It’s a whole country that’s lost its mojo and doesn’t know where to go.’
‘I think it’s the political climate that’s caused this rise,’ Benjamin Bankole Bello said, having experienced racist abuse while on stage as his character President Obonjo.
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He explained: ‘If you think about the climate for Britain at the moment, where people blame immigrants and migrants for everything, I think that has also played into the psyche of people.’
Cultural studies scholar and Bristol University lecturer Dr Kirsty Sedgman told us that this shift is a symptom of a wider cultural division.
‘When we see sudden societal shifts, or frustrations, they often tend to erupt first in live performance venues. I think that’s what we’re seeing happening here,’ she said.
‘It would be too simplistic to blame it all on the pandemic.’
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