A venue has accepted that it discriminated against a Jewish comedian when it cancelled his show at last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Stand-up comic Philip Simon had been due to perform a solo show called Shall I Compere Thee In A Funny Way at The Banshee Labyrinth, on the city’s Niddry Street. However, the venue pulled his act over what it said were his views on the conflict in Gaza.
His views were too Jewish. Now what does that remind me of…?
In a statement given at the time to industry magazine Chortle, the venue said Mr Simon had expressed views on social media and elsewhere that it said “align with the rhetoric and symbology of groups associated with humanitarian violations”.
Say what? “align with the rhetoric and symbology of”? It’s a venue saying all this? Since when are venues in the business of sniffing out “views” that “align with” a string of pompous quasi-academic verbiage?
Mr Simon took legal action against the venue’s owner, Morrison Bros Ltd, claiming it had discriminated against him on the grounds of “unlawful belief-based discrimination”.
And used pompous verbiage to do so. The pompous verbiage is important here. It allows and encourages people to think they’re saying something both reasonable and important, when they’re not.
Leave a Reply