Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Heckler

Went to see some live comedy on Saturday night. Now i'm the kind of obtuse person who finds the fact that someone is in front of me actively trying to make me laugh inherently not funny.
However, my sister likes live comedy so off we went. We arrived at the venue just in time to see that every single seat was taken except a nice table for two right in front of the stage which had clearly not been chosen due to it's proximity to the currently empty mic stand. After a short discussion about the likelyhood of being picked on by the comics, we weighed it up, and decided that standing up all the way through would be far more uncomfortable.
The compere lighted on us immediately.
"So, are you two 'together' then?"
Not that old chestnut: two girls together - must be lesbians!
We motioned back and forth between ourselves, "Sisters...."
"Ah, sisters, I see. So where are your fellas then?"
We looked at each other silently understanding that the truth was not an option- Well, she's married and i'm.....well ....SINGLE.
I love it when these kind of complex messages go back and forth between people and yet nothing is said. My sister instinctively knew that i would have no desire to announce my status to this guy (or indeed to the whole audience). I haven't got a boyfriend! Okay, everyone?? Just in case there are any spare drunks hanging around who need someone to talk to ....
Anyway, she said, "They're not with us tonight."
Suitably neutral answer. Not quite lying, not giving too much information away. There was something about the use of the words "with us" that i just couldn't resist adding,
"You know, passed over- gone to the other side...."
We both started laughing hysterically at the comic timing, i mean it just came out- the way it would if we were at home or something. I wasn't meaning to be a heckler- it just came out! The compere just looked at us laughing and i could see him weighing up whether we could possibly be joking about such a thing: should we genuinely have experienced a tragic double bereavement.
He was kind of covering up the awkwardness and doing these quiet, under the breath, nervous filling noises.
After an indeterminable length of time where he admitted "I don't know what to say to that," still thinking that he'd better watch what he said just in case it was true and we were either demented with grief or just really weird, he cracked a gag about us getting mixed up and thinking it was a seance. By this point we were hysterical with laughter, tears rolling down our faces: as were the rest of the audience.
After that he moved onto the table next to us.

1 comment:

Joanne Hartley said...

har har! that's really funny. a very elegant and effective deflection.