Culture war storm in teacup over Roy Chubby Brown event cancellation [merged]

[Harpo Speaks]

Some choice extracts from the documentary about him from the mid 2000s here:

https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,50433.msg2661283.html#msg2661283

[jobotic]

There's now 120,000 black millionaires in this country now, that's a fucking shocking statistic isn't it? If we'd known that we'd have picked our own fucking cotton wouldn't we? [laughs, smatterings of applause] You daren't fucking laugh, dare you? In case we've got one in. Case you get a fucking spear in the back. Fuck em, that's what I say.

Autopsy Turvey: nig-nogs? Is that the sort of thing he says? Really? But what's actually racist about him?

I guess if a spear chucker working behind the bar doesn't like he could take the night off.

[kalowski]

In 1995 I went on holiday to Corfu and in a bar the owner stuck a Chubby Brown video on. I don't remember much about it other than (a) most of it was full and weak and (b) there was a very well delivered joke about walking an old woman across the road.
What I don't remember is any racist stuff. Was I just more racist in those days or has his act changed?

[Sebastian Cobb]

It is The Spectator

Kind of obsessed with the numerous brendan shops out there.



https://twitter.com/StefGotBooted/status/1344683393716527105

[DrGreggles]

In 1995 I went on holiday to Corfu and in a bar the owner stuck a Chubby Brown video on. I don't remember much about it other than (a) most of it was full and weak and (b) there was a very well delivered joke about walking an old woman across the road.
What I don't remember is any racist stuff. Was I just more racist in those days or has his act changed?

He started doing racist stuff relatively recently.
Before that it was just sexism and homophobia, so good on him for expanding his repertoire.

[the ouch cube]

I find people like O'Neill especially exhausting, because he's so relentlessly contrarian that you struggle to believe it's motivated by anything other than a cynical desire to stoke shit up. If a freak earthquake destroyed London, he'd have an article out within the hour blaming political correctness.

The thing to do with BO'N is to convince him that someone arguing that he shouldn't be publically executed in an exceptionally drawn out manner is a 'woke student', at which he will passionately claim that he ought to be publically executed in an (etc.)

[Phoenix Lazarus]

The comment below was made on a Facebook article about his gig being cancelled.

Bev Furnish

Horrible man went to see him live after the bradford city fire where a lot of people lost their lives and his jokes were about bradford having a massive bbq he was almost lynched and had to leave the stage

[Kankurette]

I find people like O'Neill especially exhausting, because he's so relentlessly contrarian that you struggle to believe it's motivated by anything other than a cynical desire to stoke shit up. If a freak earthquake destroyed London, he'd have an article out within the hour blaming political correctness.

If Brendan O'Neill was a character from The Wheel of Time, he'd be agreeing with Moridin that the Dark One is Good, Actually and claiming Trollocs are persecuted, and those awful woke Borderlanders should just let them eat humans.

[Pavlov`s Dog`s Dad`s Dead]

The comment below was made on a Facebook article about his gig being cancelled.

Thing is, I'm from Bradford. I lived within earshot of Valley Parade, although thankfully we'd gone to Coventry
for family reasons that weekend. I remember the furore over Brown's gig, and the approving mythology that grew up around it: "the crowd broke both his legs" etc. etc. And even then[nb]28 years old, etc[/nb] I knew enough to think WTF was the audience expecting? They must have known what kind of act he did, and the proto-trolling he was notorious for. It's all fun and games when it's some other poor downtrodden cunts on the receiving end of Brown's material, though. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, of course, but I'm not sure
anyone comes out of that evening smelling of roses.

[Flouncer]

Sadowitz was famously playing in Sheffield shortly after (perhaps actually the night of) the Hillsborough disaster, and opened his gig with a joke about it. If I remember correctly I think a CaB poster was in attendance that night.

[king_tubby]

Didn't Brown do some routine in Middlesboro about being surprised the crowd were there cos he thought they'd all be at home fucking their kids after the Cleveland abuse scandal?

[The Culture Bunker]

Didn't Brown do some routine in Middlesboro about being surprised the crowd were there cos he thought they'd all be at home fucking their kids after the Cleveland abuse scandal?

It's certainly a story I heard years ago, which does mean it may well be almost mythical in terms of the likelihood it actually happened.

As for O'Neill and his nonsense, can only repeat that I sort of knew him 20 years ago and you never would have thought he'd turn out to be etc etc. His big hobbyhorse then was how the British establishment were scum for what happened in Northern Ireland.

[king_tubby]

Yeah, the Living Marxism lot were very pro-IRA. One of the many ironies in Claire Fox taking a seat in the Lords for the Conservatives. Still, grifters gonna grift.

[mjwilson]

It's certainly a story I heard years ago, which does mean it may well be almost mythical in terms of the likelihood it actually happened.

Much like the abuse claims themselves.

[JCR]

How did Sheffield City Hall possibly manage to book Roy Chubby Brown without knowing who they were booking? At least one of his tapes/dvds was filmed there. Bloody hell.

http://www.videocollector.co.uk/roy-chubby-brown-saturday-night-beaver/22749

[Ignatius_S]

How did Sheffield City Hall possibly manage to book Roy Chubby Brown without knowing who they were booking? At least one of his tapes/dvds was filmed there. Bloody hell.

http://www.videocollector.co.uk/roy-chubby-brown-saturday-night-beaver/22749

No one has suggested that's the case here - and although I can't say this was the case of all, but a good proportion of venues that have cancelled Brown's bookings (going back to at least 2006), had previously hosted his gigs. Often Brown will cite that he's played there or the town/city plenty of times in the past.

When one venue in Newcastle allowed Brown to play again, it was after a new organisation was running it and is an example of the kind of factors that can be at play.

[Jockice]

Sadowitz was famously playing in Sheffield shortly after (perhaps actually the night of) the Hillsborough disaster, and opened his gig with a joke about it. If I remember correctly I think a CaB poster was in attendance that night.

That was me. It was the night of the disaster. But I missed the first few minutes of the show and was only told about his (alleged) gag a few days afterwards by someone I knew. I don't know what he actually (allegedly) said, as there were bigger things happening in Sheffield at the time and I don't think a 'deliberately offensive comedian does deliberately offensive joke' story would have got past newsdesk.

All I can say is by the time I got there nobody seemed to have walked out* (we'd done a story probably a couple of years earlier about Chubby Brown when the only person who actually walked out was the reporter sent to cover it, who was apparently warmly greeted by his manager at the exit and told: "Ah, you must be Kate!'') and I've seen him several times since and he has never done a joke about Hillsborough, so either it's an attempt at creating an urban myth or it was a really shit gag.

(*He was appearing at the Memorial Hall at the back of the City Hall. Capacity 500. From my recollection it wasn't full but was by no means empty either. Chubby regularly plays - or used to - the main City Hall, capacity 2,271)

[Jockice]

In 1995 I went on holiday to Corfu and in a bar the owner stuck a Chubby Brown video on. I don't remember much about it other than (a) most of it was full and weak and (b) there was a very well delivered joke about walking an old woman across the road.
What I don't remember is any racist stuff. Was I just more racist in those days or has his act changed?

A schoolmate of mine was a big fan and once lent me a bootleg cassette of a live performance he'd attended in the 80s or maybe the early 90s. I can just remember it being more predictable than outrageous though. Can't remember any of the jokes at all nowadays. I'm not easily shocked but I just can't recall anything he said.

My mate never ever mentions Chubby nowadays. He now thinks Bill Hicks is the greatest comedian ever. I'm not sure if he has gone off Chubby or just doesn't want to talk about it anymore. I've never asked him.

[JCR]

A schoolmate of mine was a big fan and once lent me a bootleg cassette of a live performance he'd attended in the 80s or maybe the early 90s. I can just remember it being more predictable than outrageous though. Can't remember any of the jokes at all nowadays. I'm not easily shocked but I just can't recall anything he said.

My mate never ever mentions Chubby nowadays. He now thinks Bill Hicks is the greatest comedian ever. I'm not sure if he has gone off Chubby or just doesn't want to talk about it anymore. I've never asked him.

I would assume Mrs Brown's Boys has hurt RCB, because why pay £20-30 for a ticket to Brown, when the BBC is giving out the same kind of humour- without the extreme racism/sexism- for free.

[thenoise]

I would assume Mrs Brown's Boys has hurt RCB, because why pay £20-30 for a ticket to Brown, when the BBC is giving out the same kind of humour- without the extreme racism/sexism- for free.

And there is plenty of edgelord sexism and (almost-)racism from the likes of Boyle and Carr etc. Not to mention the Internet.

About the only thing Chubbs has left is that he calls Muslims "coonts" in a crowded theatre. Which is enough to pack out theatres up and down the country.

[thenoise]

Thing is, I'm from Bradford. I lived within earshot of Valley Parade, although thankfully we'd gone to Coventry
for family reasons that weekend. I remember the furore over Brown's gig, and the approving mythology that grew up around it: "the crowd broke both his legs" etc. etc. And even then[nb]28 years old, etc[/nb] I knew enough to think WTF was the audience expecting? They must have known what kind of act he did, and the proto-trolling he was notorious for. It's all fun and games when it's some other poor downtrodden cunts on the receiving end of Brown's material, though. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, of course, but I'm not sure
anyone comes out of that evening smelling of roses.

A rare misfire from the Chubbs, who isn't really an equal opportunities offender ala Sadowitz (although, he probably thinks he is). A notable lack of material about eg the armed forces, football hooligans, tradesmen, thick as shit working class men drinking lager in flat roofed pubs then staggering home and yelling at their wife and kids.

[Ignatius_S]

I would assume Mrs Brown's Boys has hurt RCB, because why pay £20-30 for a ticket to Brown, when the BBC is giving out the same kind of humour- without the extreme racism/sexism- for free.

I'd be surprised. Very different beasts and as mentioned above, Brown has 60 dates lined up between the time of the post and the end of next year, so a fair fee.

Last year, Chortle reported that Brown's company has £4.5 million in assets and cash at bank - at face value, not bad.

[Ignatius_S]

And there is plenty of edgelord sexism and (almost-)racism from the likes of Boyle and Carr etc. Not to mention the Internet....

Very different audiences. Also, Brown found his audience and success through gigging, Boyle and Carr's success as stand-ups came through their TV work, which would affect audience expectations.

That said, when Brown gets gigs cancelled, it's usually Carr and Boyle that are cited as examples as acts that are fine with the venues with a question of why?

[thenoise]

It's a different career path, but I'd be surprised if there wasn't a fairly big crossover of audience. Brown isn't really catering to the usual stand up audiences, he plays provincial theatres not stand up clubs and the Edinburgh Festival. I guess that Chubb fans are on the whole casual stand up fans, it's light entertainment, it's daft songs and a silly costume and familiar gag structures.

[JCR]

I'd be surprised. Very different beasts and as mentioned above, Brown has 60 dates lined up between the time of the post and the end of next year, so a fair fee.

Last year, Chortle reported that Brown's company has £4.5 million in assets and cash at bank - at face value, not bad.

Chubby is lower profile now though. He was playing the Glasgow SECC and Edinburgh Playhouse 20 years ago, the latter holding 3000 and the former being more than that. I don't think he plays Edinburgh anymore & I would guess he's in a much smaller venue in Glasgow. Everywhere that sold VHS tapes carried his, the supermarkets, Woolworths etc.

Don't get me wrong I'm sure he does very well & the anti woke grift will help him but I wouldn't call him one of the biggest UK stand ups & once he was.

[Autopsy Turvey]

Autopsy Turvey: nig-nogs? Is that the sort of thing he says? Really? But what's actually racist about him?

Probably, I don't know, I've never seen a performance of his, by the time my classmates had cottoned onto him I was already able to recite entire George Carlin records, so I missed the Chubby window. My point was that his raison d'etre is saying outrageously out-of-order things from the perspective of the silliest twat in the room, and nobody looks up to him as a model of what a man should be.