Comedian Josh Widdicombe has recalled the brutal heckle he received early in his career that has “stuck with” him.
Widdicombe, whose busy comedy career started in 2008, was performing a set at Edinburgh Fringe Festival that didn’t go down too well when someone shouted words of discouragement from the audience.
“I was doing a 10-minute show and was doing really badly,” he said. “A member of the audience said: ‘In 10 years, you’ll be average.’”
The comedian, 42, told The Times that the wording “was such a specific angle that it obviously stuck with me”.
He acknowledged that part of being a good comedian is improvising whenever hecklers rear their heads, but he advised those watching comedy gigs to remain silent.
“Generally, if you can’t deal with hecklers, then you’re not a very good comedian, but I’d implore anyone reading not to bother heckling because it doesn’t add to the experience.”
Widdicombe’s comedy career was launched when he made it to the final of So You Think You’re Funny? , a comedy tournament at the Fringe.
Three years later, in 2012, he made his debut on panel show Mock the Week, before becoming a regular on The Last Leg in 2013. He joined BBC 5 Live in 2014, hosting Fighting Talk alongside Georgie Thompson, but quit after just two years due to his “increasingly busy schedule”.
Widdicombe became the first-ever winner of comedy favourite Taskmaster in 2015, and during the pandemic in 2020, he launched the successful podcast Parenting Hell with fellow comedy star Rob Beckett, following their respective obstacles as fathers.
Widdicombe has two children with TV producer wife Rose Hanson, whom he married in 2019.
In 2022, the comedian suffered a “mental collapse” due to severe burnout, leading to “horrific panic-attack-led insomnia” after being left “terrified about going to sleep at night”.
Widdicombe explained his anxiety stemmed from a fear that if he ever stopped working, then all his success as a comedian would vanish.
He told The i that he was “initially very resistant to taking antidepressants” as he thought there was “some sort of shame or stigma involved”.
However, Widdicombe added that taking medication allowed him to ”make the life changes I needed to make”.
“It’s a shame that there’s still stigma attached to it,” he said. “It really helped me to just deal with it.”
In 2023, Beckett revealed his podcast co-host had been “stretched beyond belief at home and at work” after committing to too many things, leading him to “not enjoying life and feeling stressed and fed up”.
According to UK government statistics published in 2024, 8.7 million adults in the UK are on antidepressants.
Widdicombe, who has launched a new podcast named Josh Widdicombe’s Museum of Pop Culture, is currently embarking on his comedy tour, Not My Cup of Tea, across the UK.
If you are experiencing feelings of distress, or are struggling to cope, you can speak to the Samaritans, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch
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