Comedian Mark Watson ‘locked out’ of his own stand-up show in Bristol

British comedian Mark Watson has said he was “locked out” of his own stand-up show in Bristol.

On Sunday the comedian, 43, announced to audience members in the bar of the Tobacco Factory that he could not “get in” to the theatre, 15 minutes before he was due to perform.

The Mock The Week star posted a video to Instagram which showed him talking to ticketholders before he was let into the space to begin his show.

In the clip, captioned “locked out of my own show” Watson said: “Hello everyone, I’m the, to be fair, the comedian.

“And we ought to be opening these doors now because the show starts obviously in 15 minutes, but there’s no other way to say it, I can’t get in.

“So couple of options. 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 want you to know, in case it looks like I’m very complacent, just drinking at the bar, well firstly, yes, I am drinking at the bar, but I’m taking the situation as seriously as you are.

“These people (staff) cannot do anything about it. It’s not their fault.

“Actually, it’s no one’s fault and also I have been here, I’ve been here an hour to let them know I’m here and the aim of that was that everyone would relax but I say they’ve over-relaxed a bit.

“So I think the show will start on time but you’d love those doors to be unlocked relatively soon.”

Watson revealed this was not the first time he has been unable to get into a venue on tour.

Ending his announcement, he told fans: “I would say see you in there but there are no guarantees.”

The video was also posted to TikTok where it has, so far, amassed 1.2 million views.

The comedian is currently touring his show Search and has upcoming dates in cities including Newcastle, Leeds and Belfast.

Watson has appeared on TV panel shows such as Would I Lie To You? and QI and and he has also been a contestant on the Channel 4 programme Taskmaster.

A spokesperson for Tobacco Factory Theatres said: “We had two sold-out gigs one after the other for Mark yesterday (Sunday), 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.

“We’re very grateful to both Mark and the audience for their good humour pre-show, we often open the house 10 minutes or so before the start time, so business as usual in that sense.

“We’re very pleased that everyone enjoyed the performance in the auditorium and not in the bar.”