Andrew Lawrence: Comedy club staff threatened with violence for axing comedian’s show following racist tweets
Numerous venues have cancelled Lawrence’s shows in the wake of his tweets
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.A comedy club has been threatened with violence after cancelling shows by comedian Andrew Lawrence after he tweeted racist jokes about England’s Black footballers.
Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka and Jason Sancho were all subjected to racist abuse by some England fans following England’s defeat against Italy in the Euro final on Sunday (11 July).
Lawrence tweeted: “All I’m saying is, the white guys scored.” He added: “Equality, diversity, s*** penalties.”
When criticised for his comments, he responded: “I can see that this has offended a lot of people, and I’m sorry that black guys are bad at penalties.”
His comments drew widespread criticism and several venues announced that they were cancelling his bookings on his forthcoming tour.
One such venue – The Concorde Club in Eastleigh, Hampshire – have revealed that their decision to cancel Lawrence’s show was met with threats of violence towards their staff.
In a post shared to their official Facebook page yesterday (13 July), The Concorde Club bosses wrote that they had been left “shaken” by one especially “evil” email.
The post read: “Sometimes I despair at some people in the world and today is another day of this. Further to our difficulties yesterday with having to cancel a comedian date due to his tweets, our staff have been subjected to threats of the most evil kind.”
It went on to detail in full an email received from a “Gordon” that “left some of our staff shaken”. They added that the police have been notified in the hopes of “trac[ing] this low life”.
The email accused The Concorde Club of making a “foolish mistake” and threatened to assault staff at random “most likely [with] a hammer in the back of the head as they leave at night”.
Among other threats against the club as a business, it also threatened that “managers will be grabbed & stabbed” as well as family members, who will also be targeted.
They warned that “you had better be on your f***ing toes”.
The Independent has contacted a representative of The Concorde Club for comment.
It was reported yesterday that Lawrence was reportedly dropped by his agent in the wake of his racist tweets.
Richard Bucknall, the founder of Lawrence’s now-former agency RBM, has now told Chortle that they “no longer represent Andrew Lawrence”.