Second Edinburgh venue cancels Graham Linehan comedy show

Father Ted creator Graham Linehan has been an outspoken critic of the trans rights movement

A second Edinburgh venue has cancelled a show planned for this evening featuring the controversial writer Graham Linehan.

Leith Arches cancelled a stand-up comedy show planned by Comedy Unleashed that was due to take place on Thursday evening when it emerged the writer was on the bill.

Linehan, whose writing credits include the television shows Father Ted, Black Books and The IT Crowd, is an outspoken critic of aspects of the trans rights movement.

An alternative venue was found after Leith Arches axed the show, but then later on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, Comedy Unleashed said: “Our replacement venue has cancelled on us too, but we’re still going ahead tonight at 7.30! Ticket holders have been emailed with the new location.”

Earlier, Linehan told TalkTV’s Julia Hartley-Brewer he would consider taking legal action if the Leith Arches refused to host him.

He said: “It was cancelled within a couple of hours. So I had two hours of excitement and fans saying they were going to go.

“It was a sell-out. But you do get used to this kind of thing after a while.

“It never really makes you feel good.

“The only good thing about it is that it’s drawing more attention to the fact that, essentially, a group of highly ideological cultists have taken over institutions across society.

“If they apologise and put the gig on, I’ll say no more about it but otherwise I’ll be looking at legal action.”

Leith Arches said on Tuesday: “We were not aware of the line-up of this show in advance.

“We have made the decision to cancel this show, as we are an inclusive venue and this does not align with our overall values.”

The venue added in a follow-up statement on Thursday morning: “It was brought to our attention at the very last minute of the very controversial line up.

“We work very closely with the LGBT+ community, it is a considerable part of our revenue, we believe hosting this one off show would have a negative effect on future bookings.

“The decision was not influenced by the pressure of online activists, but by our regular community who use this space on a daily, weekly and [monthly] basis.”