The owner of a comedy club in London has banned people who have done facial botox from attending their shows!
The decision comes after several performers complained about 'unresponsive faces' in the crowd.
Owner of Top Secret Comedy Club, Mark Rothman, said, "I've had numerous complaints from performers who find it increasingly challenging to gauge audience engagement and bounce off their reactions…Comedy thrives on connection and facial expressions play a huge part. We want people to laugh, cry, frown, or sneer, but frozen faces from Botox impact the entire atmosphere."
As a result, two venues from Rothmans’ business will deny access to customers with Botox to be present in their live comedy shows.
Additionally, audience members will be subjected to an ‘expression check’ at the front door to ensure their faces can move.
The drastic measure has been called a “last resort” to avoid losing comedians who perform at the club. It has hosted some of the top comedians, such as Jack Whitehall, Amy Schumer and Dave Chappelle.
Andrew Mensah, one of the venue’s regular stand-up comics, said, “Performing to an audience with frozen faces can be incredibly tough…Comedy is a two-way street – we feed off the energy and reactions of the crowd. Mark and the team are always devising new ideas to support us comedians – this must be his best one yet.”
Paul Chowdhry, a comedian who is set to perform at the club later this month, said, “My face barely moves on stage – I wouldn’t want to see the same thing staring back at me.”
Rothman claimed that their incredibly talented comedians were fed up with performing to reactionless faces. "We hope trialing this ban will help move the needle and get facial reactions back into the room -- for the benefit of our comedians and the audience,” he added.
“We’re dead serious about the ban and if you're surprised we need to see that! We are looking forward to welcoming faces old and new, that can still move, in our venue soon.”
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