Veteran comedian Ian Cognito dies during his performance
April 12, 2019 | 2:36pm
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Ian Cognito, 60 — whose real name was Paul Barbieri — was performing at the Atic bar in Bicester Thursday evening when he sat down on a stool, started breathing heavily and then fell silent for five minutes,
the BBC reported.
He was pronounced dead at the scene, South Central Ambulance Service confirmed to the outlet.
Meanwhile, the audience thought Cognito was simply putting on an act — and had no idea something was wrong, Andrew Bird, who runs the Lone Wolf Comedy Club event at the venue, told the BBC.
The funnyman had been feeling ill before his set began, but he was determined to perform anyway, Bird said.
“He was like his old self, his voice was loud,” Bird recalled. “I was thinking ‘he’s having such a good gig.'”
But finally, Bird suspected something was wrong and went on stage to check on Cognito.
“Everyone in the crowd, me included, thought he was joking,” he told the outlet. “Even when I walked on-stage and touched his arm, I was expecting him to say ‘boo.'”
It then became clear that this was no joke — so two off-duty nurses and a police officer began chest compressions, and someone called an ambulance, according to the report.
In an eerie twist, Cognito had even joked about dying during his gig, according to Bird.
“Imagine if I died in front of you lot here,” the comic had said.
And John Ostojak, who was in the audience, told the BBC that Cognito had quipped about having a stroke only 10 minutes before he died.
“He said, ‘Imagine having a stroke and waking up speaking Welsh,'” according to Ostojak.
“We came out feeling really sick,” the audience member added. “We just sat there for five minutes watching him, laughing at him.”
Fellow comedians paid tribute to Cognito on Twitter.
“Veteran stand-up comedian Ian Cognito has died on-stage — literally,” Jimmy Carr, of the comedy panel show 8 Out of 10 Cats,
wrote. “The audience thought it was part of the act. Died with his boots on. That’s commitment to comedy. I’ll never forget his kindness when I started out & how god damn funny he was.”
“Oh bless that Ian Cognito, who expired in his natural home last night, on stage,”
comedian and newspaper columnist Mark Steel wrote.
“He was a difficult awkward hilarious troubled brilliant sort; a proper comic.”
Bird told the BBC that this was the way Cognito “would have wanted to go” — “except he’d want more money and a bigger venue.”
“He acted like he was bitter on-stage, but he was nothing like that,” Bird added. “He was in it for the love of stand-up.”
Cognito, born in 1958, first performed in 1985 and won the Time Out Award for Stand-up Comedy in 1999.
Gave that man the “we’ll be right back after these messages”....
and clapped to commercial break.