Comedians pick on me for my loud laugh – but nothing will make me stop | Jane Howard
I thought Daniel Kitson was just about ready to kick me out of the comedy room,He had already picked on me several times for laughing too loud, too readily (“that wasn’t even a joke”, he chastised me at one point),I was trying hard to suppress my laughter – to hold it in, to hold it back, to not fully express the joy I was feeling,I was being somewhat successful,And then I wasn’t.
Everyone in the audience was laughing – but I was laughing too much.Then Kitson looked at me, and asked me to laugh “10% less” – I was ruining it for the rest of the audience, he said.Bring it down 10% and give everyone else a chance.My face turned red, I shrunk in my seat, and I tried my hardest – really, I did – to not laugh so loud.But still, I had to laugh at the request.
Comedians are always singling me out.Barely a show goes by when they don’t make a comment on the person with the biggest laugh.It’s worse in a small tent, where they can see every face in the audience and know exactly who that woman is who is laughing so deeply, so loudly.Who laughs at all of the jokes everyone else is laughing at – but who also finds every other small thing so funny she laughs at those as well.In Scout Boxall’s God’s Favourite – a comedy show about the time they found themselves without their bipolar medication – they make a quip about someone offering them St John’s wort.
My laugh was explosive.“Some of my jokes are like a machine gun, taking out everyone,” they said.“Sometimes they are a sniper rifle – just picking out the one person.” They looked at me.It is the part of myself I am most frequently embarrassed by – I try to hold my breath to suppress the laughter; I shrink down in my seat.
But it is also the part of myself I love the most,It is, paradoxically, me at my least self-conscious: it is so overwhelming that all I can do is give over to it,It is the part of me that my friends tell me they love the most too,If we are seeing a show separately, they tell me that they could pick out my seat from my laugh; if we’re seated together, they laugh at me and with me,Many strangers, I’m sure, find me obnoxious.
But I’ve equally had strangers come up to me, gleeful about how freely I expressed my joy,At the Melbourne Recital Centre, seeing Taylor Mac, one older woman who was clearly no fan of their queer brilliance leaned over to me as she walked out,“I don’t like the show – but your laugh is wonderful,” she said,(We stole the half-drunk bottle of wine off her table,)In Michelle Brasier’s Average Bear, after she sings “Your lasagne won’t make up for my dead dad”, she invites the audience to turn to the person who was laughing the loudest and say “sorry for your loss”.
Multiple audience members turned directly to me – both times I saw the show,I have always been a person who felt and expressed emotions deeply,I cry when reading, at the cinema, watching silly little videos on TikTok,Many a friend has held my hand while I choked back sobs, in life and in the theatre,I am so often scared of my big emotional sadness; but how wonderful it is that laughter and joy is just as close to the surface.
As comedy season ramps up again across Australia, I know comedians will pick on me again.Some will embrace me, some will be annoyed by me – almost all of them will notice me.And nothing will make me stop.
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