This week, Comedy Unleashed, a free-speech-themed stand-up comedy night, was expelled from the Leith Arches in Edinburgh, after revealing that its package show had a concealed member. And so, to no one’s great surprise, this year’s Edinburgh Fringe has been blighted by yet another activist-driven cancellation. Almost exactly a year to the day since the censor’s axe fell on comedian Jerry Sadowitz’s errant todger, another impudent inflorescence has been nipped, not so much in the bud as close to the root.
Comedy Unleashed had intended to smuggle in notorious paedophilophobe Graham Linehan as its secret / surprise guest. Linehan is, in truth, not really a stand-up at all. He’s a writer, with some of the best sitcoms in living memory to his name. But he is also, of course, perhaps the most relentless thorn in the side of the trans movement known to Twitter / X. As such, he might, on reflection, have known how welcome such a last-minute discovery would be in a venue that claims to ‘work very closely with the LGBT+ community’.
Upon the revelation, after the de-tucking of Linehan, Leith Arches duly issued a bull so indignant that it rivalled a Wild West wanted notice for its stern verbiage. ‘We DO NOT suppprt [sic] this comedian, or his views and he WILL NOT be allowed to perform at our venue and is CANCELLED from Thursdays [sic] comedy show with immediate effect’, it said in a statement on Tuesday evening, two days ahead of the gig.
[Worse, in the UK they have legal powers to enforce their #hurtfeelz impulses which is what they are advocating for here. No, dammit. Tyranny of the minority shall not pass. ~ Beege]
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