Graham Linehan to perform at new venue following Fringe cancellation

Leith Arches has said the comedy writer’s scheduled appearance on Thursday would have had a ‘negative effect’ on future bookings.
Writer Graham Linehan during the first LGB Alliance annual conference (PA)
PA Archive
Paul Cargill16 August 2023
The Weekender

Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for exclusive competitions, offers and theatre ticket deals

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

A comedy club has announced it has found a new venue for Father Ted writer Graham Linehan at the Edinburgh Fringe, after the original venue cancelled the show he was due to appear in.

On Tuesday evening, Leith Arches announced it was no longer hosting a Comedy Unleashed show on Thursday after learning Linehan, a critic of the trans rights movement, would be performing a stand-up routine.

The venue claimed in a post on Instagram it did not know Linehan, who also wrote The IT Crowd and Black Books, had been booked to perform beforehand.

Comedy Unleashed has since announced on X, the micro-blogging site formerly known as Twitter, that it has found a new venue for Thursday’s planned gig – but opted not to name the place where the show will go ahead.

It was a sell-out. But you do get used to this kind of thing after a while

Graham Linehan

The club’s post said: “We have found a venue for tomorrow’s gig! The show goes on! (Ticket holders will be emailed with the new address tomorrow afternoon).”

Meanwhile co-founder Andy Shaw told BBC News: “We have found what we think is a really appropriate venue which will become obvious on Thursday night why we think it is particularly appropriate.

The change in venue was announced after Linehan told TalkTV’s Julia Hartley-Brewer in the morning he would consider taking legal action if the Leith Arches refused to host him.

He said: “It was cancelled within a couple of hours. So I had two hours of excitement and fans saying they were going to go.

“It was a sell-out. But you do get used to this kind of thing after a while.

“It never really makes you feel good.

“The only good thing about it is that it’s drawing more attention to the fact that, essentially, a group of highly ideological cultists have taken over institutions across society.

It was brought to our attention at the very last minute of the very controversial line up

Leith Arches

“If they apologise and put the gig on, I’ll say no more about it but otherwise I’ll be looking at legal action.”

Leith Arches said on Tuesday: “We were not aware of the line-up of this show in advance.

“We have made the decision to cancel this show, as we are an inclusive venue and this does not align with our overall values.”

The venue added in a follow-up statement on Thursday morning: “It was brought to our attention at the very last minute of the very controversial line up.

“We work very closely with the LGBT+ community, it is a considerable part of our revenue, we believe hosting this one off show would have a negative effect on future bookings.

“The decision was not influenced by the pressure of online activists, but by our regular community who use this space on a daily, weekly and [monthly] basis.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in