UK
‘It was a baying mob’ Israeli couple kicked out of Edinburgh show speak out
Audience turn against disabled Jewish man after comedian mocks the couple’s Israeli identity and forces them to leave the theatre
August 13, 2024 15:03
Audience turn against disabled Jewish man after comedian mocks the couple’s Israeli identity and forces them to leave the theatre
August 13, 2024 15:03American comedian Reginald D Hunter mocked an Israeli-British couple who were hounded out of his Edinburgh Fringe show, Fluffy Fluffy Beavers.
Hunter, who was embroiled in an antisemitism scandal in 2006, made a joke about an abusive wife: “My God, it’s like being married to Israel,” he quipped.
Although most of the audience laughed in response, one man in the front row shouted, “Not funny”.
Speaking to the JC, the Jewish man who wished to remain anonymous, said, “It was just a heckle because it wasn’t funny, it was poor, he was nervous and sweaty. He put on a bad set. When he told this joke about an abusive husband leaving the house but it was really the husband being abused by the wife, I just said: ‘That’s not funny’ and then he really started.”
Hunter responded: “You can say it’s not funny to you, but if you say it to a room full of people who laughed, you look foolish.”
When the couple said they were from Israel, audience members shouted “f*** off”, “genocidal maniac”, “you’re not welcome” and “free Palestine.”
“It was like a baying mob,” the man added.
The man’s wife, who wished to be anonymous, stood up and told Hunter that October 7 was “terrible.” According to her husband, she told Hunter and the audience: “Women being raped, babies being killed, this was not a joke. Hamas are the abusers. People think Israel is the abuser. The joke would have worked the other way round.”
Hunter responded: “Look at you making everyone love Israel even more.”
During the furore, Hunter, 55, appeared to double down, telling the couple: “I’ve been waiting for you all summer, where the f*** you been?" according to a scathing review in the Telegraph on Monday.
The man, who uses a wheelchair, did not want to leave the auditorium, “it takes me a while to stand up and walk down the stairs,” but the shouts from the audience were overwhelming.
“The audience were really abusive and [Hunter] told us to get out and the people working at theatre told us to leave. The people working there, mostly young students, were trying to help and got us to leave, I don’t think they knew what to do.
“There was no one in the audience who stood up and said ‘This is ridiculous.’ There is a difference between a bit of heckle. If I say ‘That is not funny,’ a decent comedian would use a put-down line. They are used to being heckled; I did not want to wind up the whole audience.”
The man had to collect his wheelchair, which was at the bottom of the staircase, and Hunter allegedly laughed at the couple as they slowly left the auditorium.
The comedian gloated: “That tells me that I still got voltage" after the couple left George Square Studios.
The Israeli-British couple had booked tickets for Hunter’s show long before they arrived in Edinburgh. “Because I’m in a wheelchair, to come to the Edinburgh Fringe you need to book your tickets before you go to plan your route. You try to pick some big names and new acts to fit in with the time and location. We picked him as a show to see. I’d seen him before many years ago and he was ok.”
Hunter, who has appeared on various BBC shows, went on to make a remark about the Jewish Chronicle, Jews and money, according to theatre critic, Dominic Cavendish, who was in the audience.
The comedian said that at the time of the 2006 scandal, in which he was accused of making light of the Holocaust, his partner made a remark about accessing the JC website via a paywall.
“Typical f---ing Jews, they won’t tell you anything unless you subscribe,” Hunter said.
“It’s just a joke,” he added. The JC does not currently have a paywall.
The 2006 incident revolved around Hunter’s suggestion that he should go to Austria, where it is illegal to deny the Holocaust, get arrested for saying the genocide against the Jews did not happen, and tell the judge he was denying the Rwandan holocaust, not the Jewish one.
"The joke isn't about the Jews, it is about freedom of thought and freedom of expression," Hunter told Reuters at the time. He said the Holocaust was "one of those things considered to be off-limits; that's what I'm poking fun at. There have been loads of holocausts. Jews have the honour of having their holocaust known as 'the Holocaust', and that's fine. That's the way the world works."
Hunter and his management have been approached for comment.