{"id":26079,"date":"2018-11-16T15:00:21","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T15:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/?p=26079"},"modified":"2018-11-16T15:00:21","modified_gmt":"2018-11-16T15:00:21","slug":"an-all-white-christmas-comedy-gig-sparks-debate-over-lack-of-diversity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/an-all-white-christmas-comedy-gig-sparks-debate-over-lack-of-diversity\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;An all-white Christmas&#8221;: comedy gig sparks debate over lack of diversity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>A benefit gig arranged by British comedian Harry Hill for the muscular dystrophy charity, Action Duchenne, prompted a conversation on Twitter about diversity and tokenism on comedy bills. <\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Christmas musical special show is set to feature stars; Alan Carr, Al Murray, Jo Brand, Jimmy Carr, Jason Manford, Rob Brydon, John Bishop, Sara Pascoe, Joe Lycett and others, on 4th December.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Comedian, Lolly Adefope drew attention to the fact that the lineup of 24 acts lacked diversity with a tweet saying &#8220;someone&#8217;s dreaming of a white Christmas.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/lollyadefope\/status\/1062669243676803072<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Her tweet attracted a lot of support. But for some, it touched a nerve. One of the acts, Joe Lycett, unfollowed Adefope on Twitter. While, in a series of tweets that now appear to be deleted, Jason Manford responded to the claims that the gig wasn\u2019t deliberately all-white.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&#8220;In fairness to Harry I know for a fact he asked a lot of his pals of all different heritage, but people said no, and these are the folks who said yes and didn&#8217;t cancel. For example, I know @omid9 (Omid Djalili) was scheduled but now isn&#8217;t able to. I take your point but does seem a little harsh,&#8221; he tweeted. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&#8220;What&#8217;s harsh?&#8221; she commented. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Manford responded: \u201cI think it&#8217;s harsh using this particular example on social media (knowing how Twitter works) to make what is at most other times, a very valid and worthwhile point.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI agree with you, I\u2019m on your side, you only need to see my lineups for Manford\u2019s comedy clubs &amp; the acts I get to support me on tour.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Writer, Otegha Uwagba added to the conversation with a string of tweets: &#8220;And to those who&#8217;ve implied that it just happened to end up being all-white, and it wasn&#8217;t through design (hi @JasonManford).. that is bullshit. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Programming an all-white lineup of this scale is 100% an indicator of your unconscious bias, whether you admit it or not.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">A poster so blindingly white I think it&#39;s burned through my retinas THANKS RACISM <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ITVdnuhgIo\">https:\/\/t.co\/ITVdnuhgIo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Otegha K. Uwagba (@OteghaUwagba) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/OteghaUwagba\/status\/1062826522267054090?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 14, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">And to those who&#39;ve implied that it just happened to end up being all-white, and it wasn&#39;t through design (hi <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JasonManford?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@JasonManford<\/a>).. that is bullshit. Programming an all-white lineup of this scale is 100% an indicator of your unconscious bias, whether you admit it or not. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ITVdnuhgIo\">https:\/\/t.co\/ITVdnuhgIo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Otegha K. Uwagba (@OteghaUwagba) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/OteghaUwagba\/status\/1063029088892452864?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 15, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lolly Adefope has since posted: &#8220;I think a gig can support a charity, and be diverse, and have a great lineup &#8211; it&#8217;s called multitasking. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And if diversity isn&#8217;t important to you, then that&#8217;s fine, that&#8217;s absolutely your prerogative. But I&#8217;m still going to call it out when I see it. Good intentions shouldn&#8217;t close you off to conversation.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/lollyadefope\/status\/1062977805124800512<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In a statement issued through Harry Hill&#8217;s publicist, organised vow to &#8216;address the issue&#8217; and &#8216;apologise &#8216;for any offence caused&#8217;. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They said: &#8220;The event is being organised by Harry Hill in aid of a charity he has supported for a number of years as patron. Harry has enlisted comedians who are giving up their time for free to support the cause at Christmas\u201d &#8211; acts who weren\u2019t aware of the full line-up.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Harry asked a diverse range of comedians if they were available, with conversations with others still ongoing, and the line-up reflects who could perform on the day at the time of the event going on sale.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We fully acknowledge in hindsight that the lineup and marketing doesn\u2019t represent the diversity of the comedy industry and should have been addressed prior to being released.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We apologise for any offence caused; it was never the intention of the organisers to present a non-diverse line-up, and we\u2019re sorry that Action Duchenne have found themselves in the middle of the discussion around it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are looking at how best to address the issue, and we remain hopeful that the event raises money and awareness for an important cause. We welcome contact from any acts that would like to take part on what we\u2019re sure will be a brilliant night, and once again apologise for any offence caused.&#8221; (source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chortle.co.uk\/news\/2018\/11\/15\/41701\/%E2%80%98someone%E2%80%99s_dreaming_of_a_white_christmas%E2%80%99\">Chortle.co.uk<\/a>) <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Words: Lauren Coppin Campbell | Subbing: Lucija Duzel<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A benefit gig arranged by British comedian Harry Hill for the muscular dystrophy charity, Action Duchenne, prompted a conversation on Twitter about diversity and tokenism on comedy bills. The Christmas musical special show is set&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":476,"featured_media":26103,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/476"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}