American comedian Reginald D. Hunter has been accused of going “far beyond the bounds of acceptable comedy” and “a sickening low” after an Edinburgh Festival Fringe audience told a couple to “f**k off” amid chants of “free Palestine” when they objected to his joke about Israel.
Hunter, 55, was performing his stand-up show Fluffy Fluffy Beavers on Sunday night, when the pair were heckled by others in the audience at the Assembly George Square Studios in Edinburgh.
Moments before, he had mentioned how a Channel 5 documentary on domestic abuse had prompted him to think: “My God, it’s like being married to Israel.”
The man and woman – who were sitting in the front row – told Hunter the joke was “not funny” and were themselves Israeli, before facing the wrath of other audience members.
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Members of the public walk past posters advertise shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland, which runs through August 26
(Photo: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
According to audience member Dominic Cavendish, chief theatre critic for The Telegraph, the “ugliest Edinburgh Fringe moment ever” then unfurled.
In a scathing review of the performance, he wrote: “The pair, who said they were from Israel, then endured their fellow audience members shouting expletives (‘f*** off’ among them), and telling them to go – with slow-hand claps, boos and cries of ‘genocidal maniac’, ‘you’re not welcome’ and ‘free Palestine’ part of the toxic mix.”
The couple eventually left the venue as Hunter is said to have “openly laughed” at them, while the audience continued to heckle as they exited the hall.
The man, who asked to remain anonymous, told Jewish News that because he is disabled, he had been sitting in the front row at the venue, though not in his wheelchair. He said that when he first heckled Hunter that his joke was not funny, the comedian challenged him, “waving his fists at me and saying he would see me outside." The man said: “At that point I don’t think he realized I was disabled."
He added that he had previously seen Hunter more than 20 years ago, but did not know he had “form” for controversial remarks. “When you are in a wheelchair you have to plan a route for Edinburgh shows, so I tried to book for bigger names that I had heard of, with good access between venues. So that’s what we did. Apart from anything else, he was just awful, lazy. You wouldn’t think he was a professional comedian, it was as though this was his first performance.”
Hunter has previously been in the line of fire over accusations of antisemitism, most notably in 2006 when he joked about how Holocaust denial was outlawed in Austria.
After the couple left on Sunday night, the comedian referred to that incident and took aim at the Jewish Chronicle – which he was trying to access around the time of the controversy – being behind a paywall.
“Typical f***ing Jews, they won’t tell you anything unless you subscribe,” he jested.
“It’s just a joke,” he swiftly added.
In a statement today, CST said: “Reginald D. Hunter went far beyond the bounds of acceptable comedy, bullying audience members and then allegedly telling an antisemitic joke after they had been hounded out of the show. At a time of surging anti-Jewish hate, people who have a public platform have a responsibility to take care over their words and the impact they have on a wider society.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism said the incident was “a sickening low that cannot be disguised as comedy.”
A spokesperson said: “The events described at Edinburgh Fringe are extremely concerning. Comedians are rightly given broad latitude, but they also have a responsibility to their audience.
“Reginald D. Hunter has laughed off his Holocaust jokes and another supposed joke about ‘typical f***ing Jews’ in the past but watching on and cracking jokes as Jews are hounded out of your show is a sickening low that cannot be disguised as comedy.
“We have seen this before in recent months, and venues must stand extremely firm against this kind of behavior.”
Board of Deputies vice-president Andrew Gilbert said: “This disgraceful incident – and the reaction of the audience – brings shame to the Edinburgh Fringe. The initial jibe at Israel then being followed by a line about “f***ing Jews” exposes, yet again, the true sentiments behind so much of the ‘anti-Israel’ movement. Given that this show has been promoted under the auspices of the Fringe, we would expect the festival’s organizers to make it clear that antisemitism under the guise of ‘comedy’ is still antisemitism.”
In a separate incident in February, an Israeli man said that he felt hounded out of a comedy show by a hostile audience. The Soho Theatre apologized after comedian Paul Currie told the man and his partner to “Leave my f***ing show, now” after they refused to applaud him when he produced a Palestinian flag at the end of his gig.