A London theatre has apologised and said it is looking into an incident after Jewish audience members were reportedly “hounded out” of a comedy show. Soho Theatre, in the capital’s West End and a former synagogue, said it was saddened by the incident at the end of a performance by comedian Paul Currie on Saturday.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) said it was “assisting Jewish guests who were reportedly hounded out” of the theatre.
The organisation said it understood an Israeli man and his partner both left, followed by a Jewish party-of-four in an incident where the Palestinian flag was produced at the end of the performance.
The witness, who asked to remain anonymous, told the CAA: “When we all sat down again, [Currie] looked towards a young man sitting in the second row and said: ‘You didn’t stand, why? Didn’t you enjoy my show?’ The young man, who we discovered soon after was Israeli, replied: ‘I enjoyed your show until you brought out the Palestinian Authority flag.’”
The audience member claimed Currie told the man: “Get out of my show. Get the fuck out of here. Fuck off, get the fuck out of here.”
Other members of the audience allegedly joined in, shouting “Get out” and “Free Palestine” until the young man left, the witness said.
The witness and his friends also decided to leave the theatre. “It felt like we were welcome in the theatre as long as our identities [as] Jews weren’t known . . . “
They added: “Our friends later received a message from someone they knew who had also been at the show, saying that after we left the situation became even more inflamed. What had been intended to be an evening of comedy turned out to be what felt like an antisemitic rally.”
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “What the Jewish audience-members have recounted is atrocious, and we are working with them and our lawyers to ensure that those who instigated and enabled it are held to account. These allegations are of deeply disturbing discriminatory abuse against Jews. Comedians are rightly given broad latitude, but hounding Jews out of theatres is reminiscent of humanity’s darkest days, and must have no place in central London in 2024.”
The show is described on the theatre website as a “unique, surrealist, dada punk-clown, non-verbal experience from the award-winning Belfast comedy artist Paul Currie”.
Currie has been contacted for comment
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3 Responses
“The show is described on the theatre website as a “unique, surrealist, dada punk-clown, non-verbal experience from the award-winning Belfast comedy artist Paul Currie”.
If you are dumb enough to go listen to this, I’m not sorry to hear you had a bad evening. What the hell did you expect?
It’s good that the MOB, Murderers Of Babies, and their allies, speak their minds from the apertures of their behinds.
Are their parents proud of them?
Crocodile tears
Morality in arrears.
What’s to fear?
If to you it’s not clear
You’re part of the problem, it doth appear.