Police have confirmed that ‘no crime’ took place at a comedian’s Edinburgh Fringe show after an incident caused two Israelis to be heckled out of the venue.
US stand-up Reginald D Hunter, who frequently plays shows in Scotland the rest of the UK, yesterday said he ‘regretted’ an incident at his show in Edinburgh that saw two people booed and heckled out for disagreeing with one of his jokes.
The two people were reportedly Israelis nationals reacting to the joke that referred to the current conflict in Gaza.
They took issue with the joke that said an abusive wife complaining about being abused herself was “like being married to Israel”.
The Campaign Against Anti-Semitism had issued a statement saying that the incident was ‘extremely concerning’, while Police Scotland said it was reviewing the circumstances.
A separate venue that was due to host one of Hunter’s shows also cancelled the event due to the backlash.
Eastwood Theatre in Giffnock, which was not the venue where the incident took place, announced on Friday that it would not go ahead with Hunter’s September show. It has removed the listing from its website as well.
READ MORE: Reginald D Hunter show sparks police review after Israelis heckled out Fringe gig
Now, Police Scotland has also confirmed that no crime took place at the show, after the incident made headlines across the country.
A Police Scotland spokeswoman said in a statement: “We were made aware of a hate incident, which reportedly took place at an event in Edinburgh on Sunday August 11.
“All information gathered was fully reviewed and no crime was established.”
Assembly George Square Studios, the venue Hunter is playing his Fringe shows at, confirmed to the PA News Agency that there are no plans to cancel his gigs for the remainder of the festival, which runs until August 25.
A spokeswoman for the venue said: “We are aware of two members of the audience choosing to leave Reginald D Hunter’s performance on Sunday August 11.
“The venue front of house team attended and supported them upon exiting.”
Hunter, who has appeared on comedy panel shows Never Mind The Buzzcocks, Have I Got News For You and 8 Out Of 10 Cats, posted a statement on his social media accounts saying that as a “comedian, I do push boundaries in creating humour, it’s part of my job”.
“This inevitably created divided opinions but I am staunchly anti-war and anti-bully,” he added.
“I regret any stress caused to the audience and venue staff members.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel