Time, gentlemen, please...

Dean Burnett hates comedians who over-run

Perhaps it’s specific to me, perhaps it’s something that most people rank at the level of mild annoyance, but when it comes to comedy gigs, my biggest peeve is acts overrunning. It may be a consequence of my scientific training and anal-retentive nature, but I try to be meticulous with the length of my sets, and it really gets me angry when acts do the opposite.

I am aware that there are occasions when acts overrunning can be a very positive thing. I’ve witnessed Canadian legend Craig Campbell, booked for 40 minutes, end up doing double that in his set and walk off to a standing ovation and cries for more. Many acts (such as Patrick Monahan) are known for their overrunning and are indulged as they make it part of the experience; it’s clearly not malicious or meant with any negative intent, it’s just someone giving their all in their set.

At even higher levels there are Ken Dodd’s marathon gigs spanning many hours, tales of Billy Connolly going on for hours because he wanted to leave a gig on a different day to the one he started on, and of course nobody ever left any of Mark Watson’s 24 or 36 hour shows complaining that he’d outstayed his welcome.

These are all occasions where the audience, acts and venue are (usually) on-board with the extended sets acts are performing, whether pre-planned or not.

But at the ‘smaller’ gigs, be they open-mic or regular club nights, festivals or previews, there are far fewer occasions where overrunning is excusable. At every level of comedy you get people guilty of overrunning, and the explanations given rarely hold up under scrutiny.

Understandably, the professional headline acts get more leeway than most. They are paid the most, they go on last, and people are expecting the most from them. If a gig’s going well, why not give the audience more laughs for their money? But even this best-case scenario can have negative consequences. What if audience members need to catch a train/bus? What if the venue has to close by a certain time? By continuing what is, for all intents and purposes, a very successful set past its allotted time, an act could be indirectly pissing off many people, possibly to the point of risking their chances of being asked back to this (clearly successful) night.

This may seem counterintuitive, but although it may seem more important to keep the laughs coming in the short term, people would have left just as happy, possibly more so overall, if they’d finished at the advertised time.

On the flip side, if a headliner is not doing well (which will happen occasionally no matter how experienced they are) they may eventually feel even more pressure to overrun in an effort to get the laughs they’re being paid to elicit. But a bad gig is a bad gig, cutting your losses and leaving will leave a much better impression than heroically battling on against an apathetic or hostile crowd, adding time-wasting to the list of reasons they’ve decided they don’t like you.

At the open-mic to mid levels, overrunning is even more unforgivable. I’ve heard it argued that since acts are usually paid in stage time, then it’s every man for himself so you should get as much time from a gig as you can. This cut-throat attitude is not one I share, as in order to get the gig back on track the innocent acts following you will invariably be made to sacrifice their stage time in order to make up for your selfish behaviour.

You are also putting the MC or promoter in a position where they have to physically interrupt your set and get you off, risking pissing off the crowd if you’re doing well, introducing a lot of tension if you’re doing badly, or simply trusting you to finish ‘soon’, pissing off the other acts and possibly the crowd. It’s lose-lose-lose all round.

An opener at a gig can overrun, eating into everyone’s time and potentially wearing out the audience before the bulk of the gig. An open or middle spot can overrun, eating into the time of the more experienced and more highly paid headliner, risking their ire and putting them off doing the gig again, which in turn would aggravate the gig organisers. And these issues are greatly exaggerated if these acts don’t do well.

Whatever the excuse I find it disrespectful, unprofessional and, in the long term, damaging to any aspiring comics’ chances of being rebooked and therefore progressing. Despite the ‘me first’ attitude many seem to aspire to, I’ve found the comedy world to be a very well connected, well meaning, interacting and self-policing one. It’s not perfect, but it could be a hell of a lot worse. Constant overrunning is a trait that people would remember and talk about, so illegitimately seizing those few extra minutes of stage time could easily cost you hours of stage time further down the road.

So let’s call time on overrunning. And ironically, this article has clearly gone on too long.