Don't Heckle

Bruce Powell • August 8, 2026

It’s not that I think I’m funny, although clearly I am.

It’s more that I can’t stand the silence. The pause between words. The dry cough. The steel-seat shuffle.

Most people just shut up and watch the show.

I tried. I honestly tried.

Edinburgh Festival, 2026.

A low-ceilinged, dark room. A full house.

Don’t heckle. Don’t heckle. Don’t heckle, I chant to myself as the splendid Rachel Galvo climbs onstage, notepad, pen and microphone in hand.

“What happens when a set is experimental?” she asks.

The assembled mob are sober but generous. Lunch barely digested, the whiskey sours and IPAs yet to hit home, eager to be entertained.

I know it’s coming out of me. There’s a growing pressure, like the cork in a cheap bottle of prosecco.

I cover my mouth with one hand and grip my testicles with the other, but the demon is powerful.

“Waddya reckon?” Rachel pushes.

She wants me to join in.

She may be the only one.

My head doesn’t fully spin round, but an evil voice calls out from deep within me, released into the gloomy hush.

“It’ll be shit!” I shout.


It isn’t my first time at the Festival.

Lee Evans. The Playhouse, 1992.

“Any Americans here?” Lee asks, an icebreaker for the 5,000-strong audience.

A brief, agonising pause. Just coughs and nervous murmuring.

“Yes!” I shout.

Anita slides down her velvet seat towards the theatre floor, begging to be swallowed whole.

Lee turns in my direction and raises his arms in salute.

“Who said that?”

I semaphore back at our sweaty host and stand up.

“Yes! My man. Whereabouts in America are you from?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m not actually American. I just felt bad that no one else called out.”

I eventually sit down, but only after a difficult five minutes during which Mr Evans tears me a new arsehole.


Back to now.

Rachel warms to her task too.

A 45-minute demolition of mankind.

The brevity of our lovemaking. The ineptitude of our social skills. The joy of girls-only flats and the unwelcome boyfriends who invade them.

My heckle: the perfect segue.


To my wife:

Sorry about that.

To the assembled Fringe......

You’re welcome.

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