In what’s probably every performer’s biggest pet peeve, comedian Dave ‘Hughesy’ Hughes was forced to boot three audience members from his show last week over their “incessant” chatter, describing the encounter as “just too much”.
Hughes was performing at the Adelaide Fringe Festival on Friday when he was forced to pause his set to address a group of talkative women sitting near the front.
In the now-viral video, the 54-year-old can be seen calling out their “incessant talking” and rude behaviour — because hello, like him or not, it’s still rude as hell to talk during a performance.
“I’m sorry, it’s my fucking show, you have to shut up,” he told the group as the rest of the audience can be seen clapping and chanting “out”.
“Seriously this is fucking ridiculous. When someone is speaking like that, it’s so fucking distracting.”
On Monday, Hughes addressed the incident on NOVA’s Ash, Luttsy & Nikki Osborne show, explaining the women had received multiple warnings before he eventually got fed up.
He went on to describe the behaviour as the “height of rudeness”, given their seats right up front, before the trio eventually made their exit. One of the women can be seen giving him a lil’ hug before they headed out.
“I’m not one for kicking audience members out in general but when you give people five warnings that they need to be quiet and they don’t listen to any of those warnings, every now and again, you’ve just got to push the button, you know? You’ve got to get them out,” Hughes explained.
When asked about what the women were chatting about, he said it was “like they were on Gogglebox” as they discussed his show in real-time.
He even tried to “negotiate” with one of the women but they didn’t seem to heed the warnings, Hughes said.
“I had tried to negotiate with her and she would not listen to me, she kept talking and I said, ‘If you keep talking, you’re going to have to go’ and she found out she had to go,” he stated.
“It was just too much.”
But it looks the audience rallying behind him seemed to help smoothen the encounter. Hughes remarked he was “really annoyed” though the crowd’s reaction reassured him it was the right decision.
Hughes appeared pretty visibly annoyed in the video. (Source: 7News)
Speaking with 7News regarding the incident, Hughes explained “if you paid money to go to a show, you’ve got to shut up”. Per the publication, he’s prepared to refund the audience members, given they missed most of the show.
He also had some advice for anyone else who might be guilty of such behaviour: “Don’t have your own conversations loudly, because it’s not TV, the performers can hear you.”
Look, I’m probably with him on this one, because no one wants to be constantly distracted during their show — and you sure as hell don’t want to be the person getting booted!
Lead image: 7News / Instagram
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