COMEDIAN Jason Manford has backed Michael McIntyre's decision to walk off stage during a sell-out show in Darlington because a woman in the front row was causing a nuisance.

McIntyre's show at the town's Civic Theatre ground to a halt on Monday evening when a woman believed to have been drinking kept shouting out.

McIntyre, who was testing new material ahead of next year's tour, asked security staff to "sort it" and left the stage, returning once the woman had been ejected from the venue.

Afterwards people apologised to the comedian.

One said: "Great show in Darlington tonight... sorry about the idiot in the front row. You handled her perfectly."

And fellow comedian Manford said McIntyre did the right thing.

Writing on his Facebook page, Manford said: "The problem is it's not that he couldn't handle a bothersome heckler (I've gigged with Michael at some of the toughest clubs in the country and he was always brilliant). I suspect he was thinking about the other people in the room who had also paid good money to see and listen to him and who were starting to get annoyed by this woman.

"It is always a comedian's last option to get security but, knowing Michael, I reckon he realised she was going to ruin the show unless the theatre asked her to leave and that really isn't fair on Michael or the rest of the audience who had come to hear one of our best comedians, not some woman on the front row."