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A comedy club audience were left unamused after dozens of MAGGOTS started falling into the crowd.

Around 100 people had crammed into Oceana nightclub in Nottingham to watch four comedians.

But during the first act, the crowd were left in shock when tiny maggots started dropping from the air conditioning and into their laps.

Witnesses said one of the comics even stormed off stage because the grubs kept falling on him during his routine, and members of the audience stormed out the venue.

The incident is being blamed on a pigeon squeezing through a gap and getting into the air conditioning system.

One punter, who had attended the Jongleurs Comedy Club event, said she was “disgusted” by the experience.

Sarah Weston, 33, from Radford, Notts., who attended with her boyfriend Mike, 35, said: “It was horrible.

“We didn’t know what they were at first. But then you could see them moving, it was disgusting.

“They had a break to sort it all out and we stayed, but it made the night a little less fun because you had one eye on the ceiling.”

Another punter, who would only give his name as Sean, added: “I felt something hit my arm which I thought was spit from the comic.

“I wiped my arm and thought nothing of it.

“Then what I thought was a drip of water passed by my head; then something hit my head; then the couple on the next table started to point at the floor where I could see maggots wriggling.

“At first I thought the hecklers were throwing them, but then another fell and on and on it went, to the point where the comic asked if anything could be done to stop it happening.

“He was told to carry on, but the maggots kept dropping so he walked off and they called a break.

“They moved the audience back to other tables and gave us a cheap bottle of perry wine, Lambrini basically.

(Image: REX)

“The other acts came on while the maggots continued to drop from the air ventilation grid above the stage onto the comics.

“People left in droves - it was a purely awful, awful night.”

The evening saw comedians Chris Cairns, Gerry K, Steve Harris and Robert White take to the stage.

Writing on online review website TripAdvisor, another audience member LouiseV3 said: “During the first act, unbelievably something small fell from the ceiling.

“At first, I thought that it was water dripping from the air con unit above us and wondered why the people on the front row were getting tetchy.

“However after it kept dripping out of the air con unit, we soon discovered that it wasn’t water at all.

“It was small, breathing and live maggots falling into the laps of the audience. This absolutely disgusted us knowing we had just eaten a meal here.”

A spokeswoman for Jongleurs confirmed there was one complaint from a member of the audience on the night.

In a statement they said: “We accept there was a minor issue with the air conditioning, which was completely out of our control, and has since been rectified.

“However, we would like to stress that the vast majority of the audience enjoyed the evening and stayed for the duration of the show.”

A statement from Oceana added: “We can only apologise for this incident, that was outside of our control.

“Unfortunately, a pigeon squeezed through a gap in the netting on the outside of the building and got stuck in the air conditioning unit.

“The netting has now been replaced to prevent this happening again.”

Nottingham City Council said it had not received any complaints from members of the public with reagards to the incident.