There is a ban on comedy flyering in Leicester Square. Westminster Council has decided that flyers are litter and that the flyerers — usually anxious baby comedians – ‘harass’ the tourists. This is ridiculous. Most comedians would scream at their own reflection in a pint. Even so, if the council finds any flyers it will remove the venue’s licence. As if comedians did not have enough woes — manic depression, calm depression, depression that is not really depression but suppressed rage, poor rates of pay, joke theft, Frankie Boyle — their solitary reason for living, which is attention, is now at threat.
And this from a council that lets Hollywood premières clog up the Square (all long lines of glassy limos and stupid actors waving) and allows the Spearmint Rhino lap-dancing club on Tottenham Court Road to stay in business when even liberals think it should be firebombed. The council is oblivious to the West End’s status as a global centre of live comedy. New clubs, which have none of the irritating self-love of the established ones, are dying at birth, because, like the Monaco political parties, no one knows they exist. The comedians have responded with typical serenity and a protest where they waved signs that said ‘Don’t Kill Comedy’.
This is, of course, part of the council’s morose drive to ‘clean up London’ for the Olympics, when the whole point of the Olympics should be to make the world like London, not London like the world. Comedy is less important than an international ping-pong tournament with an overlarge police presence? That’s funny.
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