I suppose it was inevitable that cancel culture would eventually catch up with Jerry Sadowitz. We often talk about offensive or controversial comedy these days. Often regarding jokes and acts that aren’t remotely offensive or controversial to anyone other than a handful of bilious idiots.
But Sadowitz is the real deal. This US-born Glaswegian comic-cum-magician is the most genuinely offensive act you will ever see. His onstage persona is a fireball of hatred, racism, sexism, homophobia and depravity, served up with improbably brilliant magic tricks. He makes Frankie Boyle look about as edgy as Susan Boyle. And he is utterly brilliant – hilarious and almost poetic in how he vocalises hate-fuelled rage. Which is why, even as comedy has become ever more bourgeois and uptight, he has been able to continue doing his thing relatively unscathed. Until now.
Jerry Sadowitz is the real deal. He makes Frankie Boyle look about as edgy as Susan Boyle
On Saturday, Sadowitz announced that his second Edinburgh Fringe show at the Pleasance, one of the biggest venues at the festival, had been cancelled. The Pleasance swiftly put out a statement, a tour de force of Orwellian doublespeak. ‘The Pleasance is a venue that champions freedom of speech and we do not censor comedians’ material’, said Pleasance director Anthony Alderson, before adding the inevitable ‘but’: ‘This type of material has no place on the festival and the Pleasance will not be presenting his second and final show.’
Some staff members and punters had complained, reportedly because Sadowitz used racial slurs and got his penis out, both of which he’s been doing on stage for years. In the face of fierce criticism from comics and even calls for a boycott, the Pleasance has doubled down with another statement, calling the show ‘extreme in its racism, sexism, homophobia and misogyny’. ‘We will not associate with content which attacks people’s dignity and the language used on stage was, in our view, completely unacceptable’, it read.
This is strange to say the least, given the Pleasance was perfectly happy to associate itself with Sadowitz just 24 hours earlier. Indeed, he has been performing at the Fringe since the 80s, including on numerous occasions at the Pleasance. Everyone knows what he does. Are we supposed to believe they booked him and then were mortified to discover his show wasn’t an hour of observational comedy about bus queues and ready meals?
For people who run a big arts institution, the folks at the Pleasance also appear to have a feeble grasp of the difference between performance and reality, not to mention the whole notion of context. Sadowitz might say awful things in his shows, but he’s joking. On a stage. In front of people paying to see him who are in on the act. As fellow comic Richard Herring has put it: ‘To complain about him being offensive is like asking the actor who plays Macbeth to be arrested for murder.’
As for the audience, even those who hadn’t seen him before were well warned. The show is marked 18+. A warning label appears on the listing: ‘This show contains strong language and themes some may find distressing.’ A recent promo video for Sadowitz’s tour is even more explicit: ‘He’s gonna be funny. He’s gonna be rude. He’s gonna do magic tricks. He’s gonna do impressions. He’s gonna get his d*** out.’ The show itself is titled Not For Anyone, following on from his previous shows Not For The Easily Offended, Equal Opportunities Offender and Comedian, Magician, Psychopath. The eagle-eyed among you will spot a theme here. Not so it seems for those poor souls who, the Pleasance claims, were left feeling ‘uncomfortable and unsafe’ by Sadowitz saying and doing on stage the sort of thing he has been saying and doing on stage for about 40 years.
The cancellation of Jerry Sadowitz shows there is now nowhere to hide from the self-righteous, infantile and philistine climate that has overrun art and culture. Sadowitz doesn’t let a scrap of his work end up on YouTube. He has told journalists never to quote lines from his shows in reviews, because — shorn of any context or irony or theatricality — they could so easily be used against him. He has shunned mainstream success, while raging against those comics in the mainstream, like Boyle, who he accuses of ripping him off. (‘I’m sorry I’ve given some very nasty people a good living’, he told the Guardian in 2011.) But even he — as feted and as subterranean as he is — is no longer allowed to ply his trade in peace. Do Sadowitz, yourself and free expression a favour and buy a ticket to his tour.
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