Father Ted creator Graham Linehan says he is considering legal action after being “excluded” by an Edinburgh Fringe Festival venue over his views on gender.
The comedian was set to appear at Leith Arches on Thursday night alongside five other stand-ups.
The event, put together by promoters Comedy Unleashed, boasted “edgy” performances but soon found itself off the bill for not aligning with the venue's “overall values”.
Speaking exclusively to GB News, Linehan reveals he has “lawyered up” in a bid to tackle the decision.
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“It can’t go on”, he told Patrick Christys.
“LGB Alliance have just come out of a long, vexatious court case brought against them by Mermaids. Luckily Mermaids have been found out and are now under statutory investigation.
“We can’t let these people who have some very dangerous ideas and some very big things to hide.
“There’s some bad people in this movement, they use the cover given to them by transexuals, which is a hugely sympathetic group, understandably so.
“But many of these people online are fully untapped men with long hair and finger nails who are doing things like sending death threats to JK Rowling.
“It has to be exposed, and if it means having to take legal action against this venue, I will.”
Andrew Doyle posted new details about the gig on his Twitter
Comedy Unleashed
It comes as gig organisers Comedy Unleashed revealed an alternative venue has been found for the stand up show.
Tweeting the announcement, GB News presenter Andrew Doyle, who runs Comedy Unleashed, told ticket holders that they will be informed of the new address on the day.
Linehan is set to perform alongside comedians Mary Bourke, Dominic Frisby, Bruce Devlin and Alistair Williams.
He told GB News’ Patrick Christys that he wrote up 20 minutes worth of material, being under the impression that the venue had made a “genuine change” in its approach to gender-critical comedians.
“I’ve been doing a little bit of stand up comedy to see if I can do it”, he said.
“Comedy Unleashed asked if I would go to Edinburgh to do it. Yesterday, they announced I would be on, and I thought that’s interesting, things must be changing.
“Not only did they cancel me, they cancelled the whole show. I genuinely did think those days were over after Joanna Cherry gave the Stand venue in Edinburgh a good spanking.
“But apparently not, apparently they can still cancel us for perfectly commonplace views that are shared by 99 per cent of people in this country.”
Linehan’s appearance was initially kept under wraps having been billed as a “surprise famous cancelled comedian”.
But the venue went on to cancel the entire show within hours of his identity being confirmed, saying “we are an inclusive venue and this does not align with our overall values”.
They later added: “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.”
