6. The Role of the Audience

This chapter explores the shift in the relationship between audience and performer, tackling the responses available to audiences, both those attuned to punk conventions and the unconverted/uninitiated. The punk audience appeared to be a ‘new’ kind of audience—seemingly authorised to participate and even be unruly. This translated into an increase in heckling with altcom, and the use of the Comedy Store gong—a novel means of interaction available to the audience, with the capacity to empower them to sway the course of a performance. Rather than equality pertaining, however, the dynamic more often tended towards a play for dominance (for example in the relocation of indifference), with performers sometimes struggling to maintain control.