Back in the day, when he played in venues so small he could hear it when patrons flushed the toilet, Steve Martin had to exit a stage that had no wings ― so he simply went down the central aisle, through the audience. “It’s over,” he told them, only to find that, as he exited the building, they followed him, Pied Piper fashion, hungry for more. So he kept his patter going, walking down the street, joking and laughing, until he came across an empty swimming pool. He bid the audience to get down into it and proceeded to “swim” across them.
Is there a more delightful image of the intimate, supple, magically double-jointed relationship between a comedian and his audience? They were the ones
