The Plight of the Drunk Heckler
Stock image of one of my fans
The major question that I receive when people find out I’m a stand-up comedian is “How do you handle hecklers?” It’s clear it’s now the main fascination of the general public. In part, it’s due to the rise of these kinds of videos via social media. It’s understandable. The idea of getting on a stage alone and entertaining an audience is already so stunning to other individuals, let alone the idea of being quick on one’s feet enough to deal with someone who is throwing off the nature of the show. The ability to improvise and still entertain the audience is fascinating. The ability to put someone in their place, to have that power to make all just and right in that moment captivates people. They couldn’t imagine being in that same position as you.
Here is my secret: I don’t want hecklers. I don’t want “to take them down.” I certainly have the skill to do it and I certainly do it if the situation arises in my live shows but it doesn’t mean that I want to do it or get a thrill from it. I’m sure I’m in the minority on this topic with my fellow comedians because, realistically, the impromptu nature of handling hecklers and doing it skillfully draws more laughs. It gives the audience more appreciation for your ability. And what comedian doesn’t get a high off more laughter? What comedian doesn’t want to feel more appreciated?
I can do it. However, joke writing and stand-up comedy performance has always been more poetry and theatre to me than improv whose focus is the audience. The timing and the beats of my material matter. It doesn’t mean that they can’t be thrown off and I can handle it. It doesn’t mean they are the exact same every time at every performance. I play with the performance. I fine-tune the performance. I take it whatever direction I wish to take it. The audience is there to experience that performance on that given night. In that sense, I expect every show to be the environment that would be the case for an album or a special. You don’t want hecklers at an album recording or a special. Those recordings are not about them. They are about the comedian. They are about the performance. They are about etching that moment in time, that completion of many months or years of work and effort into that recording. Ideally, to me, every performance should feel that way even if it is part of the process to get to that point. The ideal is to create such performances, not to “handle hecklers.”
When people ask me how I handle hecklers, my answer is pretty simple. Hecklers are usually drunk. So, this is more crowd control while adding comedy than it is creating any form of art for me. These drunk hecklers are usually equated with what is perceived to be “fun.” They are having a happy night out and experiencing live stand-up comedy is part of their “fun.” I am not an artistic performance, I am “fun.” I accept that and work accordingly with it to ensure I create “fun” in whatever definition that may be. That’s part of my job to me.
Of course, the usual hecklers are drunks who heckle thinking that is “fun” and it’s their responsibility to “add to the show.” These are actually not my hecklers. If you’re aware of my comedy, mine is not about creating a party. Yes, you’re here to have fun at my shows but in the sense that you are watching a performance and not in a sense that you arrived drunk, will continue to get drunk, and are part of the drunken orgy that is my comedy show. I don’t do comedy that creates any particular controversy. So, I’m a certain type of comedian, one that doesn’t exactly draw those looking for a party atmosphere.
It does not mean that I don’t get my fair share of drunk hecklers or that I don’t continue to draw drunk people. My hecklers are drunk for a reason. But they aren’t drunk for the quintessential “happy night out.” They are usually drunk because they are dealing with some issues and, unfortunately, it’s the very kind of issues that led me to stop drinking. So, essentially, for me as a comedian, this isn’t exactly fun anymore whether onstage or offstage.
At a recent show, I had a drunk audience member come up to me after the show. I had to make fun of her during the show otherwise she would have derailed the show. It was fine and she wasn’t too drunk and was a good sport about it. She apologized after but then could tell whatever I addressed in my comedy came from a deeper, perhaps painful place. This led her into sharing her feelings, her recent pain, her devastation. In my head, I thought, “Ahh, so you’re drunk for all the wrong reasons.” These are my drunk hecklers, the people going through something much deeper, the people that shouldn’t be drunk to begin with to handle their problems. It shouldn’t shock you to know that I don’t draw the “You were great! Sign my breast!” kind of drunk nor is that who I want to draw anyway.
How in the world am I, a comedian who stopped drinking, supposed to get joy out of “taking down” a person who is heckling because they are dealing with their own personal issues? I can do it and the show can continue and entertain all but I don’t get any joy out of it. That’s because I know my audience member’s pain. I’d been through that myself (just not yelling stuff out at comedy shows in dealing with it). And, now, I’m having to deal with them after the show which I’m not sure I even want to be doing. I don’t really want to have to converse with someone that happened to be at my show about their issues. But, alas, these are the people that I draw and I accept that because I would draw these types. They are who I am or at least who I once was and that they can bond with my improvement from who I once was. So, I’ll talk to them, I’ll accept their apology, I’ll listen to what they’re going through, and all I can do is hope for the best for them. But, I also can sit back later and write this now and, to the real question of how I handle hecklers, my actual response is more an existential “What the fuck is this?”
I say that because, with hecklers, I can do the job, I can “take them down,” I can entertain an entire audience as a result of them. I can also tell you that it gives me no joy to do those things because, with the few hecklers I do get, I know they are simply not happy people. If I’m not getting joy from stand-up comedy performance, then why would I even be doing it? So, it’s sad to be honest with you, but “handling hecklers” is more an existential indictment on stand-up comedy for me than it is something I want millions of views on Tiktok for.
Call me crazy, but I’m not interested in shitting on complete strangers who paid money to see me. That’s not my brand or reason for comedy. Worse, I’m not interested when, in the bonding that comes with live performance, I only manage to find out I shit on someone dealing with some heavy issues. That’s not why I do stand-up comedy. That’s not why they should be here for my stand-up comedy. So, how can I explain that the whole structure of why I love stand-up comedy and my audiences is actually thwarted by the plight of the drunk heckler? It upends the very notions of why I do stand-up comedy and even why I stopped drinking.
So, yes, how do I handle hecklers? Very well and very unhappily. And, we all know that even some of the ones there for a “happy night out” probably are not exactly happy themselves either. They are just hidden behind the night of a happy event and thus not open to share in their misery and depression with me afterwards.
What can I truly say to my drunk hecklers? I can only hope they find a better way to deal with their issues and I can only hope that, somehow, even in me needing to make fun of them, that one comedy show provided some small help and improvement to whatever they are going through.
The reason I get no joy from the drunk heckler is the sad reality that I was once them.












