Comedian Tom Allen has the last laugh after gay heckles during … – Belfast Telegraph
Comic Tom Allen has told how a woman in the audience at a Belfast show turned her chair around when he talked about being gay.
e said that when he challenged the punter, she became “furious” and heckled him before being chucked out.
The Apprentice: You’re Fired! presenter added that a group of rugby players who were in the audience took him out in the city afterwards and got him “absolutely hammered” to help him get over it.
Tom (39) explained: “The gig I did was run by the nicest family. It’s been running for years in a high-ceilinged room, a bit like a church with a high stage to match, so high that you feel like you are on a tightrope.
“One night, I started my set and I was talking about the experience of being gay and living with my parents.
“A woman in the front row turned her chair around, so she had her back to me. She was clearly drunk.
“I was feeling confident, or maybe just too tired to be nervous — the hours of travel from the airport had clearly worn me out.
Tom, Tia Kofi, Lawrence Chaney, Ru Paul Charles, Shirlie Holliman, Martin Kemp and Suzi Ruffell on Celebrity Lingo
ITV
“I decided to ask her why she had done that. (I said), ‘You all right there? I don’t think you’re going to get a very good view if you’re facing the wrong way’.
“The woman looked out at the rest of the room with her arms folded, then she turned around to face me, looking furious (and said), ‘My son is worth 10 of you’.
“I was perplexed. ‘But how do you know how much I cost?’ I said, trying to seem like I might be a sex worker on the side and also trying to pretend that I was still fun and confident. She stood up, pointing. ‘My son, he is worth 10 of you’.
Gloria Hunniford, Joel Dommett and Tom on DNA Journey
“The people around her seemed to be telling her to shut up. I hadn’t really said anything offensive. All I could tell was that she was very proud of her son — what mother isn’t? — that she was furious that I was talking about being gay. I definitely hadn’t said anything pejorative about him, nor about anything, really.
“I have always made a point of talking in the first person because, after all, how can you know what anyone else’s experience has been?
“She turned to sit back down and abruptly fell off her chair. With that, the whole audience burst out laughing and cheered. I felt sorry for her.
“She must have thought I was not worthy of standing up on stage when her son wasn’t on stage, who was 10 times better than me.
“None of it made sense. She was drunk. No wonder I was anxious when I first started out when I would sometimes get responses like that.”
Tom, who recently discovered through the ITV genealogy show DNA Journey that he is a cousin Gloria Hunniford, said that fans embarrassed by the behaviour of the woman, who was turfed out, later took him out on the town.
He explained: “The door staff escorted the lady out, and she was furious. I think it was part of the loop that I was in: desperate for positive affirmation but also fixated on negativity.
“A group of rugby players were in that night. Very kindly, they took me out afterwards in Belfast. It was so much fun.
“After my post-gig treat, which that night consisted of chips, they got me absolutely hammered so that I didn’t really remember the strange experience with the odd person at the gig, and they proved that despite the negative experiences, there are always more good ones to celebrate than bad.”
In his new book Too Much, the comedian joked that he always gets confused by Northern Ireland’s two main airports.
He added: “Belfast was usually very nice to me, but every time I did a gig there I would end up arriving at the wrong airport — Belfast International.
“Presumably so-called because it is so far away from Belfast that it seems to be in another country.”