The comedian who died a death on stage after joke about stroke
TO SOME, it was the greatest commitment to comedy.
Minutes after joking about the unimaginable horror of having a stroke and then waking up speaking Welsh, standup comedian Ian Cognito sat down on a chair and laid back.
The audience, already whipped up from what had been a hugely successful set, was in fits of laughter.
There they sat, laughing, for several minutes, unaware that Cognito, 60, had died.
Eventually, a nervous-looking compere shuffled on to the stage at the Atic bar in Bicester and asked someone to call an ambulance.
Panicked staff attempted to perform chest compressions and asked the audience to leave while they waited for paramedics.
South Central Ambulance Service later confirmed that the veteran comic was pronounced dead at the scene.
John Ostojak who had attended the Lone Wolf Comedy Club gig, said: “We came out feeling really sick. We just sat there for five minutes watching him, laughing at him.”
Yet for many of his fans, it was a fitting, if tragic end.
Luisa Omielan, a fellow stand-up, said: “I saw him once on stage years ago and was in awe, he was as epic as his reputation. Rebellious and brilliant. “He even died like a legend. Far, far too soon.”
Jimmy Carr, presenter of Eight Out of Ten Cats, said: “Died with his boots on. That’s commitment to comedy.”
Cognito, whose real name was Paul Barbieri, was well known on the comedy circuit. He was a notorious hellraiser with a solid fanbase with whom he enjoyed a cult status.
Born in London in 1958, he first performed on stage in 1985. He won the Time Out Award for Stand-up Comedy in 1999 but many put his failure to hit the big-time down to his unpredictability and controversial routines.
Critic Bruce Dessau wrote on his Beyond the Joke website: “He was certainly not a politically correct performer and would often spend part of his time insulting his audience.”
In 2002, Cognito spoke about his problems with drink and said he was “constantly in trouble”. He once proudly declared that he was “banned from more clubs than any comedian in the country”.