Simon Munnery on Mark Lamarr’s masterclass in handling hecklers

Mark Lamarr did the bravest thing I’ve seen anyone do on stage. There are others who inspired me when I started (Jerry Sadowitz, John Hegley, Malcolm Hardee, Arnold Brown) and along the way (Phil Kay, Robin Williams) but if heroism requires courage, and it doth, Mark gets my biscuit.

I started doing comedy in the late 80s, and things were different on the circuit back then: it was more combative, there was more heckling. Maybe the spirit of punk still wafted in the ether as audiences seemed imbued with the urge to level. Heckling was expected – it was the nature of the playing field. On discovering my profession/malady, people often said to me: “Oh, you’re a comedian – how do you cope with the heckling?” The truth is, we didn’t always. Sometimes, a comeback would occur to you on the spot; sometimes you’d reach for one of your own prepared put-downs (these we carried in our heads, like squirrels with treasured nuts or battle scars from previous encounters), or as a last resort, one of those in common ownership (“What a shame when cousins marry”, “Don’t drink on an empty head” etc. There were about seven.) And sometimes you’d just die, or get heckled off.

But Mark wasn’t like that; he was genuinely witty, sharp as a tack, the undisputed king of the withering put-down. If the circuit was the wild west, then Mark was our Billy the Kid.

The brave incident occurred at Late’n’Live in Edinburgh. It was a bear pit, a cauldron: as a gig, it was as tough as they come. You could storm it, but most likely you’d be heckled off.

I met Mark backstage. “Nice glasses,” I said, glad to welcome a new spectacle-wearer to the fold. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m the compere,” he replied.

I was stunned. Mark had been hosting The Word on Channel 4 – he was famous, and I knew that would not endear him to the crowd. It would only make them more determined to heckle him off. And this was his first gig wearing glasses.

Mark went on and, predictably, the place erupted, a veritable barrage of heckling. Mark dealt with each and every heckle. At one point, he said: “I can only deal with one at a time, I’m putting you on hold.” Someone shouted: “You speccy git.”

“I’ve been waiting for that,” Mark said and proceeded to demolish the heckler for their anti-spectacle prejudice. He was brilliant.

Then an aggressive male voice from the back of the room shouted, “I’m going to kick your fucking head in.”

“All right,” said Mark, removing his glasses and placing them carefully on a speaker. That moment showed great bravery: to accept the offer of a fight from someone you can’t even see.

The crowd went mad. “Fight! Fight! Fight!” they chanted over and over, as the man slowly made his way to the stage. When he finally got there, and stood next to Mark, you could see they were physically evenly matched. “Give us the mic,” said the man and lunged for it. Mark skilfully moved it out of his reach: “You can have a fight,” he said, “but you can’t have the mic. And you’ve got to start it: I’m not starting a fight in front of 200 people.” Then he pushed the man behind him and proceeded to ridicule and mock him – a man who had come up with the loudly expressed intention of beating him up, with considerable support from the crowd. But the bright lights and being on stage unnerved the man and he couldn’t bring himself to start punching. He just stood there awkwardly, like a eunuch at an orgy.

Eventually, he found a way out of the situation: he dived off the stage on to the front tables. It wasn’t a traditional stage dive, where the crowd catches you. He just crashed heavily down, shattering glasses and damaging furniture, before being ejected by the bouncers.

I don’t remember the rest of the gig.