Comedian Mark Watson locked out of his own Bristol show

Comedian Mark Watson was late to his own show after being locked out of the Bristol venue with his audience.

The panel show regular was due to perform his show, ‘Search’ at the Tobacco Factory in his home city of Bristol on Sunday. However, the theatre was still locked 15 minutes before he was meant to be on stage.

Watson, who has appeared on prime time comedy television shows, Never Mind The Buzzcocks, QI and Would I Lie To You?, posted a video on Instagram from the theatre bar, sharing his confusion and explaining the situation to the audience who were also unable to get in.

He said, “We could do it here, but you paid for a seat and you paid to be in a room resembling a theatre so I just wanted you to known, in cast it looks like I’m very complacent, just drinking at the bar, yes I am drinking at the bar, but I’m taking the situation as seriously as you are.”

Watson had been preparing throughout the day to minimise stress during the event. He said, “I’ve been here an hour ago to let them know I’m here and the aim of that was that everyone would relax but I say they’ve over relaxed.”

He also added that he’d been to the venue earlier in the day, saying, “I’d already been into the venue a couple hours before, then gone out to lunch with family around the corner.

“So I’d done most of the set up but as a result when I came back it didn’t seem like they were expecting me, the doors were locked which meant the audience couldn’t get in but neither could I.’

While he did describe being locked out as “quite panic inducing” he maintained that it was “no one’s fault”.

The show eventually started, later than planned. According to the BBC, spokesperson for the venue said, “we had two sold-out gigs one after the other for Mark yesterday, Mark showed up an hour or so before the matinee to do his sound checks with our technical team, which all went well, he then left the building for food.

“Our front-of-house duty manager then went to do their building safety checks and seemingly, as the title of Mark’s show suggests, they all had to search for each other afterwards to get him access to the space again.”

They expressed their gratitude to Watson and his audience saying, “We’re very grateful to both Mark and the audience for their good humour pre-show. We’re very pleased that everyone enjoyed the performance in the auditorium and not in the bar.”

The next performance of Watson’s tour will be on Thursday November 9 at The Lights theatre in Andover.