A comedian collapsed and died on stage while the audience watched thinking it was a joke.60-year old Paul Barbieri, stage name Ian Cognito, was sitting on his stool at the Atic bar in Bicester and then began breathing heavily. Soon after he was silent and was pronounced dead per reports.He actually joked about dying of a stroke during the set.Andrew Bird, who runs the comedy club Lone Wolf, thought he waa joking like the audience. However when he went to check on him on stage, he knew something was wrong.Before his performance, Cognito was feeling ill.