A comedy show that was sold out and scheduled to take place at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival has been cancelled because of one of the performers views on gender.
Th venue cancelled the entire show citing complaints about one of the comedian’s previous statements on transgender self-identification as the reason.
It has been widely reported that the show at the world’s most renowned comedy event, which would have featured award winning comedy writer Graham Linehan, was pulled by the Leith Arches venue when it realised the production did “not align with our overall values”.
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The BAFTA winning Irish comedy writer created or co-created the sitcoms Father Ted, Black Books, The IT Crowd and Motherland as well as writing for other shows
Summit News reports: The venue admitted that it had no idea about the show until a mob of ‘activists’ started complaining to them about it.
The show was organised by Comedy Unleashed, an organisation run by GB News host Andrew Doyle and comic writer Andy Shaw, which specifically caters for comedians who “leave their self censorship button at the door”.
Shaw commented “We’re very much against this cancel culture because we think it’s killing the arts and it’s treating the audience like children who need mollycoddling”
He continued, “Andrew Doyle and I set Comedy Unleashed up because we’re sick of this. We want the extroverts, we want all the crazy stuff, we want people to be free and treat the audience like they’re adults.”
He added “If there’s any venue out there who wants an audience of 150 people – we’re sold out – we will bring our audience and our pre-packaged act to your venue.”
Linehan has made his views on the trans issue and cancel culture abundantly clear in the past, which even led to him being suspended from Twitter in 2020 for posting ‘hateful content’.
Linehan responded to the latest cancelation, noting “It sure sounds like discrimination on the grounds of my legally protected beliefs.”
The writer also defended himself against the mob, including other British ‘comedians’ who weighed in:
I couldn’t stomach Father Ted. I don’t know if it was any good because about 15 seconds was enough to have me dry retching I don’t care what his views are about whatever sensitive issues some people are supporting this week .
Of course, He thinks his Mother is a Woman. So the Show was Cancelled.