Comedian reveals shock at being asked if act needed 'trigger warnings'

A comedian has spoken about his shock at being asked if his stand-up act required ‘trigger warnings’.

Andy Hamilton, 69, who has written for The Two Ronnies, Outnumbered and more, said he was shocked when a theatre manager recently asked him if he should warn the audience about ‘anything you’re going to say’.

He also revealed complaints about a disability sketch he was involved with all came from able-bodied members of the audience and said people usually want to be outraged on ‘someone else’s behalf’.

He said audiences generally know what to expect from shows and they didn’t need to be treated as ‘stupid’.  

But Mr Hamilton added he wasn’t pessimistic about cancel culture and thought it was ‘exaggerated on both sides’.

When asked about sensitivities on the Always Be Comedy podcast, he said: ‘I’ve not experienced it yet.I did have on the last tour, a young front of house manager come up to me, and they say “how long’s your show?”

‘You go “hour and a half”, “interval?”, “yeah”, “any loud bangs, any special effects?”. You go “No”.

‘”Any merch?”, “no”, and then he went “Trigger warnings?” I’d never heard that so I sort of went “What do you mean?”

‘He went “Should I warn the audience about anything you’re going to say?” And I went “No, I want it to come as a horrible surprise”.’

He added: ‘That was the first time.Afterwards I felt a bit cheap that I’d done a joke about it because presumably that was just on a checklist that he had and he was just doing his job.

‘I presume the previous week someone in the audience had been offended by a joke, had made a complaint, and as part of the complaint had said “and why wasn’t I warned that there was a joke that would offend me?”

‘I remember watching a couple of years ago, there was a continuity announcer and he said ‘Viewers may find some scenes in this documentary disturbing’.

‘And it was a documentary about the Holocaust.And I thought “Well, yes. But why would you (have to tell that)”.’

Mr Hamilton said if comedy became too censored Britain would lose a ‘lot culturally’ and outrage over sketches was always a ‘puzzle’ to him.

He added: ‘I think there’s a risk that if we went too far down that road then we’d lose a lot culturally.

‘You want a world where Frankie Boyle and Jerry Sadowitz are still performers that people can go and see, but you also want to a world where people feel they don’t have to see Frankie Boyle and Jerry Sadowitz.

‘That’s the thing that’s always been a bit of a puzzle to me is the sort of outrage that you sometimes get.You think ‘Well, it is on the tin, that’s who it was’.’

He said: ‘I remember Ash Atalla, who’s a brilliant producer who made The Office, and Ash contracted polio when he was a boy and so he uses a wheelchair and he made a pilot for the BBC written and performed by disabled people with the working title of ‘Goodness, actual news Gracious, Wheelchair’.

‘He asked me if I’d kind of mediate in a discussion forum for it.If you have any queries concerning wherever and how to use today news, you can speak to us at the web site. I thought it had some really funny sketches in it. So we showed it – about 25 minutes long – and then to this audience I said ‘Hands up if you were offended by anything you saw in the show?’

 

‘And about 30 hands went up out of about 200, but they weren’t disabled people.They were able-bodied people.’

Hamilton added: ‘I’ve a long-term concern which is so much of humour, so many classic jokes, so much of what we joke about are very serious topics, like death, marriage, relationships failing, illness.Part of it is that jokes are sort of a relief valve.

‘So a lot of it is about laughing in the face of life.’

He said: ‘Say you were telling a deathbed joke – you get a whiff of this with some broadcasters where they’ll go ‘there’ll be a lot of people out there with grief issues, we better put a helpline on at the end’.’

But Mr Hamilton says he’s not pessimistic as he believes a rebalancing has started to take place against cancel culture, and added being cancelled means ‘a particular student union got a bit uppity and wouldn’t let them do a gig there’.

He said: ‘It’s a phoney war.I think actually on both sides it’s exaggerated.’