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I've heard people say, 'There are no bad audiences,' but that's just not true. There are people who just shouldn't be together in a room, who produce a really bad audience.

In my whole career, in fact, I can remember only two first nights when a show was at its peak on the first night. And I just wish we could devise a system where critics came not on a single evening but were given a choice of performances to attend.

I guess my idea of a good audience is one that's quiet and listens, but also that's alive: they respond, they're getting the jokes, they're with me. And that' s been happening.

Audiences are so much more sophisticated than they've ever been. They expect a lot more. I don't think because it's an hour of your Thursday night rather than an hour and a half of your weekend that you should be gypped at all in quality.

At some of the venues, the audience was so loud we could hardly hear what was happening on stage, which kind of threw us back to 1983, when we had very similar reactions on a much bigger scale.

The crowd can be a little different in some places. For example, in Europe, people tend to be very respectful. They try not to make too much noise at inappropriate times. In other countries, people can be very still. Sometimes I'm not sure if a crowd is into it until the end, when they usually want me to do something crazy for the encore.

What's great about having an audience is they can let you know what they don't think is funny, and you can just cut that out and keep trying.

The audience changes every night. You're the same person. You have to speak your mind and do the stuff that you think is funny and makes you laugh.