I've been going to comedy gigs for as long as I can remember and reviewing them for nearly as long, but last night there was a first. I was sitting in an aisle seat about eight rows back from the stage at Frank Skinner's opening show at the Leicester Square Theatre. During his set there was a tap on my shoulder. It was one of the ushers: "Please do not take notes." "Why?" I asked. "It's policy."

I explained that I was reviewing but the usher was quite firm. I'd noticed earlier in the gig another usher squeezing along a row near the front to admonish someone else and I presumed that was for filming or recording the gig so that they could whack their wobbly footage onto YouTube as soon as they got home. Which would have been fair enough. But who knows, maybe they had their Biro out as well.

I was more amused than angry about this. It was too awkward to enter into a debate mid-set so I put my pen down for a while before continuing to take briefer notes more discreetly. I'm nothing if not rebellious, but I'm also so reasonable it sort of made sense. There is often talk among comedians of joke theft and I have heard rumours in the past of writers for television comedians in the pre-digital age lurking at the back of club gigs jotting down winning wisecracks told by unknown acts who would hardly have the muscle to take legal action if they thought their intellectual property had been nicked. There is always a simple defence with accusations of gag theft - people can come up with the same gag simultaneously. Though I guess if one of your gags could be found in a notebook belonging to one of a TV stars's writing team that might be persuasive evidence. But in this case I don't think it was Skinner's people who wanted to ban pens and paper from his gig (they had given me a press ticket, what would they expect me to do, use my memory?) it was the venue.

Maybe the policy was because I was distracting the people around me. I don't think that was the case though. I've learnt over the years how to write surreptitiously on a very small piece of paper after I was at a gig and a comedian pulled a notebook out of the hands of a critic he spotted at the front and humiliated him by reading out his scribblings in front of the audience. Luckily for the comedian it wasn't a shopping list. Luckily for the critic it wasn't a doodle of women's breasts.  If it was the case that they don't want their audiences to be disturbed I approve. I wish all venues would police punters as rigorously. You don't get many people texting at comedy gigs in theatres, but at the Soho Theatre last week I was on a stool at the side above the main stalls and a number of people pulled their phones out to check them and they intermittently glimmered like flashing stars.

Anyway, there was a happy outcome to this incident. About five minutes later the usher came back to say she had checked with the manager and I could take notes after all. So apologies if I have misquoted Frank Skinner in the review that appears in the Evening Standard today when I refer to routines told during this brief clampdown. It was a very funny gig. Almost as funny as what happened to me.