Kevin Hart really doesn't want you to bring a phone to his gigs
The American megastar comedian has chucked hundreds of fans out of his gigs for using their mobile phones
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Last week Kevin Hart became the first comedian/ actor/ entertainer to launch his own range of Nike trainers. The “Hustle Harts” will go on sale in April and feature inspirational quotes like “Don’t Give Up” and “Health is Wealth.”
Comedy and cross-training might look like an odd combination but the deal confirms Hart’s megastar status. Last year, the 36-year old was one of only two comedians on Forbes Celebrity 100 list, with estimated wealth of $28.5million; the other one was Jerry Seinfeld. His latest film, Ride Along 2 has grossed $44.3million in the week since its release and has knocked Star Wars off the top of the charts in America.
His latest stand-up show, What Now?, is the world’s highest-grossing comedy tour, having played 45 cities in America, including three nights at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Last week it landed in the UK for a sold-out arena tour.
All of which means that Hart can probably afford to upset a few fans. And he did last week when he – or the Birmingham Indoor Arena staff, on his instructions - threw 29 audience members out of his gig for using their mobile phones. Never mind that they had paid up to £85 for a ticket, they had been warned in emails, tweets and a pre-show announcement, which boomed: “Last night 250 people were ejected before Kevin Hart even came on stage - you have been warned.”
That number may have been exaggerated for dramatic or even comic effect but the warnings kept coming on the big screen and in voiceover and there were updates throughout the night on the numbers who had been chucked out. The same happened at London’s O2 a couple of days later when reportedly 50 people were removed before the show had begun. In America, 150 people were kicked out of Hart’s show in Syracuse for phone use, 70 from Madison Square Garden and in Iowa City a woman was arrested when she made a phone call during the show and refused to cooperate with police when they asked her to leave.
So when Hart says zero tolerance, he means it. Although he did end the Birmingham gig with a request to the crowd to take out their phones and switch on their lights so that he could take a photograph with his, er, phone.
It’s a more hardline stance than the UK is used to but Hart is not the first comedian to crack down. Michael McIntyre walked off stage in Darlington in 2014 when a fan in the front row refused to stop filming; Sarah Millican accused a filming fan of “theft”; and in 2009 Lee Hurst was prosecuted for criminal damage after he smashed a fan’s phone.
Quite right, too. There is nothing more annoying than someone fiddling with their phone at a gig. Phones aren’t tolerated in theatres or concert halls and barely in cinemas so why should comedy be different? It could be something to do with the matey and informal, or rock-star atmosphere stand-ups try to create. More likely, the problem lies in arena shows. They are so impersonal, some may feel that normal rules do not apply. Or perhaps they feel that if they have paid £85, and they can barely see the face of their favourite stand-up, they can send the odd text. It’s still a bizarre thing to do – more than any other artform, comedy demands that you live in the moment. If you fall behind, you miss the joke and no-one wants to be that person.
Hart is likely less worried about distracted fans than his other revenue streams. Those people who spend the gig watching it through a phone so they can upload it to YouTube later are potentially damaging his ticket sales and the planned DVD of What Now? And yet, if you’re a big Kevin Hart fan, chances are you’ll follow his TV appearances, see him live, maybe more than once, and buy the DVD, too – by which time you’ll know his best material off by heart.
He should relax and remember that the best comedy bears repetition. That's why the BBC has just commissioned another new Peter Kay retrospective. The six-part series will revisit the comedian’s finest television and stand-up work from the last 20 years. No word yet on a lucrative deal with Nike trainers for the Boltonian.
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