Comedians reveal their most awkward onstage moments

FROM being pelted with chicken drumsticks to being harassed by drunks, some of Australia’s top comedians have had some very awkward moments on stage.

Comedians Steen Raskopoulos, Mel Buttle and Frank Woodley.

FROM being pelted with chicken drumsticks to being harassed by drunk fools, some of Australia’s top comedians have had some very awkward moments on stage.

With the Melbourne International Comedy Festival now in full swing (to be followed by the Sydney Comedy Festival in May), we asked some very funny people to relive some very awkward moments.

Here are the incidents they’d rather forget:

MEL BUTTLE

I’ve done some tough gigs, I’m from Brisbane so you’re always battling to be more interesting than the greyhound races and Keno.

The worst by far was on the Gold Coast, I was hosting and I’d only just started the night — I reckon I’d only done one or two jokes — and for reasons that are still a mystery to me, a woman in the crowd began yelling out, “my dad’s a wharfie”.

I tried to give her some attention, but no matter what I said she would reply with, “my dad’s a wharfie”. She was drunk, like really drunk, like Rugby League drunk. She eventually got out of her seat and approached the stage, she got right in my face and started screaming, “my dad’s a wharfie”.

I’d tried all my tricks and nothing was working and then a hero emerged from the crowd, an undercover police officer. He came up to the stage, put the heckler in an arm lock and took her outside. The gig was tough from then on. The audience were very subdued, but whenever I needed to win them back I would just say, “did I mention my dad’s a wharfie?”

Mel Buttle’s new show is called I Can’t Believe It’s Not Buttle.

STEEN RASKOPOULOS

There was a good one in Edinburgh last year. I was midway through a sketch and this guy stood up, walked up to the stage and said, “Sorry, I’m just going for a piss”. But he didn’t move. He just stood there on stage and then skolled the rest of his beer.

After a while he put the beer glass down and walked back to his seat, he didn’t even go to the bathroom. I don’t know if he was too pissed or if he thought he was helping out with the sketch. At the end of the show, the usher told me that the told guy had fallen asleep and they had to wake him up when my show was finished.

As they were walking out, he apparently told the usher, “it was a great show, please tell Steen I really enjoyed myself”.

Steen Raskopoulos’ new show is called The Coolest Kid in Competitive Chess.

CAL WILSON

There have been a few awkward stage moments over the years. I’ve been heckled by a guide dog puppy and I had a guy at my festival show vomit over the row in front of him. I’ve done a corporate gig where we were pelted with chicken drumsticks by disgruntled chicken factory workers. My only regret with that one is that I didn’t manage to catch any drumsticks with my mouth.

My favourite heckling moment was seconds after I got onstage at a charity gig. I’d literally just started to say, “Good evening ladies and gen ...” when a guy yelled out, “Get off and put your mother on,” which I assume was some kind of backhanded compliment about me looking too young.

I won’t lie, I was annoyed. I didn’t think about what I was going to say, it just came out. So when he yelled, “Get off and put your mother on,” I said, “Is that what you say to your wife?” The rest of the crowd loved it, and I’m just lucky he didn’t have any chicken drumsticks.

Cal Wilson’s new show is called Things I’ve Never Said.

FRANK WOODLEY

I was in the duo Lano and Woodley at the Montreal festival and we were performing on an outdoor stage in a predominantly French-speaking area. Much of the audience spoke little English or had English as a second language, and this, combined with our Australian accents, meant they couldn’t understand anything we were saying. The highlight of the show was when Colin threw out all our planned material and led the audience in a spontaneous lesson in Australianese. He explained the meaning of the word “s**thouse” and got five hundred people chanting “This is s**thouse!”

Frank Woodley’s new show is called I, Woodley

DILRUK JAYASINHA

In my first year of comedy I was asked to do an outdoor gig in Anglesea, Victoria for a Rover’s Camp. It was a huge stage that looked like something out of Big Day Out and I was so excited!

But no one told me that the crowd had been drinking since morning and when I got onstage they hated me before I could even say anything. At the point a beer can came flying at my head I remember thinking, “Hmmm this wasn’t worth the one and a half-hour drive”. Oh and yeah, I wasn’t getting paid. I had agreed to do this nightmare for free.

Dilruk Jayasinha’s new show is called The Art of the Dil.

For ticket and show info for all of these artists, go to comedy.com.au