Syd ComFest, Cancellation Controversy, Salon

This is this week all of a sudden! Tickets for my solo show CHRONOS – at the ⁦Sydney Comedy Festival are here if that’s a thing you’d like to engage in. It’s only four nights, so jump on board the train. (This is a little inside joke because the show is set on a train. Of course, if you haven’t seen the show, it doesn’t make sense, and I’m mainly addressing this paragraph to people who haven’t seen the show, so it’s VERY self defeating).

TICKETS

As ever, if you are a Patreonite and would like an extra ticket for free, email me the day before with your ticket receipt and I’ll set up a complimentary ticket for you (as long as I’m not sold out - normal years I’d just cram an extra seat in. One year, we’d exceeded capacity in the audience area so I ‘cast’ my excess people in the show and put their chairs on the stage. but this year for obvious reasons they are being very thingy about the number of people in the room, so).

Cancellation Controversy

If you’ve been following the ins and outs of scandal in the Australian comedy scene, you’ll know that there’s been a moderately high profile scandal this week, and More Talent, who produce my festival shows in Australia have parted ways with one of their big ticket acts. To put it VERY mildly, the man involved was accused of some creepy gross behaviour, some consistently disrespectful stuff and some full on criminal acts, and reacted publicly in the most appallingly ill judged way.

Truly, only look it up if you have a fairly strong stomach for vile speech acts and explicit expressions of contempt for women both general and specific. Anyway, he’s been dropped from both the perth and sydney comedy festivals as well as by his management. I’ll probably chat about it in the salon in a more on point way, but one of the things that struck me was the comments by fans of his below these various announcements, about due process and proof. This is an argument that comes around every time the culture wars has another battle, from both sides, depending on the instance and the ground so hare my general thoughts on that, which I formulated on Twitter at 6am like a reasonable human being. Ha.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but: The standard of proof required for a business to take action regarding an accusation of bad behaviour is not the same as is required of a court in a criminal case.

In a crime, “beyond reasonable doubt” is what we require of proof because the consequence might be depriving someone of liberty. But you can get fired for having a bad attitude and nobody needs to prove anything much unless you want to later build a case for wrongful dismissal.

Businesses get to discontinue your favourite lipstick or cancel your favourite series or fire your favourite ice cream scooper for almost* any reason at all.

*subject to the employment law where you are.

In entertainment, where part of the product you sell is reputation, a bad scandal is a spike in business costs and a business is entitled to cut costs.

And I agree. The outcomes can be unfair or unpleasant and things like this can set a worrying precedent, because it empowers whoever can get an angry Twitter gang together. But that doesn’t change the brutal calculations of capitalism.

And of course, if you have a problem with the brutal calculations of capitalism, I’m happy to discuss the smashing of that system at some point.

This week’s salon

This week’s salon is U.K. time at 9.30pm on the 4th of may (an hour and a half later than usual so it’s 6.30am Sydney time for me rather than 5am. Still rough, but I’m 90 minutes more awake), and OPEN to ALL levels of Patreonite.

The link is here, and I’ll send the password through on the day for all. Stick it in your diaries.

Topic: Tea With Alice Salon 21

Time: May 4, 2021 09.30 PM London

May 5, 2021 06:30 AM Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney

link for tuesday/Wednesday: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81735795864?pwd=REl6UVNlRElRalZ1WXVPM0VtZ1Zadz09

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As ever, if you like any of my work, please do share it around. Word of mouth is the thing that makes the biggest difference to the structure of the arts industry. It takes my success out of the hands of gatekeepers and puts it into the hands of people who actually like my work.