Comedian Tom Houghton says 'you win, Middlesbrough' after unexpected audience interaction

A comedian has admitted “you win, Middlesbrough” after audience interaction he didn’t see coming.

Tom Houghton was performing at Middlesbrough Town Hall on Wednesday when banter with the audience took an unexpected turn. The comic, who is supporting Milton Jones on his UK tour, posted on social media: “OK, so I’ve just performed in Middlesbrough. Chatted to a bloke who said he was disabled.

"I said ‘whereabouts are you? You’re in the dark so I can’t see you.’ He replied ‘I can’t see you either, I’m blind.’ After that, the next person I chatted to told me he was also blind. I said I didn’t believe him. He said: ‘Well I’m half blind, I’ve got a glass eye.”

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And that’s when things took a surreal turn. Tom posted: “I said he was definitely joking. Then, and I’m not lying, he took his eye out and held it up in the air for everybody to see. Everyone apart from, presumably, the first guy.”

And the audience reaction? “As you can imagine, the crowd went mental. So, yeah, well done Middlesbrough. You win.”

Tom told Teesside Live: “I genuinely thought the second guy was taking the mickey when he said he was blind too. Then when he took his glass eye out, the audience went insane and I was just, like, mic down by knees, thinking ‘what’s going on?’

“It was one of those moments when, as a comedian, you know you don’t have to do anything more. Give them the moment, you can’t compete.”

But Teesside quick-wittedness comes as no surprise to Tom because he knows the area well, having spent some of his childhood in North Yorkshire. His dad Nick – Lord Houghton of Richmond – is a Green Howard, former Chief of the Defence Staff and spent much of his early career in Catterick, while his mum, Margaret, is from Richmond.

Indeed, the couple live near Darlington, so Tom drove to the Middlesbrough gig from his parents’ home. Tom added: “I love coming back north and playing places like Middlesbrough because the audiences are always quirky and full of the best characters. The people are very proud of the area and genuinely seem grateful you’ve come.”

Since revealing the glass eye incident, Tom says he’s been contacted by lots of people who claim they, or their relatives, have taken their own glass eyes out in various places. And now Tom – a finalist in series five of the US version of Netflix series The Circle – says he’s looking forward to returning to the region next year when he plays Darlington Hippodrome as part of a 60-date UK solo tour.

He added: “I love playing up here. It reminds me how much fun and how amazing the people of the North-east are and makes me a bit homesick, to be honest!”

But will “glass eye man” be in the audience again?

Visit https://honourabletom.com for more info on Tom.

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