The venue where writer Graham Linehan was due to appear on Thursday has cancelled his appearance after complaints.
Andrew Doyle of Comedy Unleashed tweeted: "Our Comedy Unleashed gig at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe has been CANCELLED by our venue following online pressure. It is astonishing that a comedy night at the largest arts festival in the world should be prevented from going ahead, simply because activists are offended. The comedy industry is in a dire state. It’s about time that promoters, venues, comedy critics and comedians made a concerted effort to support free expression in the arts."
This Instagram post pictured is understood to be from Leith Arches, which was the location of Thursday's upcoming Comedy Unleashed bill. An earlier image which Comedy Unleashed claims was online but is no longer there said: “We would like to thank the public for bringing to our attention, about a comedian who had been booked for an upcoming comedy show at our venue on Thursday, which we were not made aware of until today via email from, rightly so, outraged members of our community. We do not supprt (sic) this comedian, or his views and he will not be allowed to perform at our venue and is cancelled from Thursday's comedy show with immediate effect. An outside organiser was responsible for the line-up and we were unaware of who was performing until now. We are an inclusive venue and will not allow such views to violate our space."
The venue is not believed to be part of the "official fringe" and the event was not on the edfringe.com website. It has been suggested online that the organiser find an alternative venue.
This follows the controversy last year over comedian/magician Jerry Sadowitz's short Fringe run being cancelled following complaints. Sadowitz went on to play the biggest gig of his career at the Eventim Apollo in London.
According to the Comedy Unleashed website the gig is still on and is sold out here. And interestingly the venue never named Linehan. It just stated that the line-up would include a 'Famous "Cancelled" Comedian'.
