A comedy club in Chesham that cancelled a comedian's set following their racist tweets has opened up on the feedback they received.
The Chesham Comedy Club were one of the first in the country to publicly call off the set of Andrew Lawrence, who wrote racially motivated messages following England’s defeat to Italy in the Euro 2020 Final on July 11.
The match finished 1-1 at Wembley Stadium after extra time, and in the resulting penalty shootout, Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka all missed their spot-kicks with gave the Italians European Glory for the first time since 1968.
Following the defeat, Rashford, Sancho and Saka received numerous messages of support and abuse with Lawrence writing three messages aim at the players.
READ MORE: Andrew Lawrence has gig cancelled at Chesham Comedy Club
One of the messages read: “I’d rather he’d practised his penalties, and the kids had gone hungry.”
This was aimed at Marcus Rashford who back in October, helped millions of children across the UK receive free school meals during the half-term.
He also tweeted: “All I’m saying is, the white guys scored” and “I can see that this has offended a lot of people, and I’m sorry that black guys are bad at penalties.”
He has since been dropped from his management and has had all of his gigs cancelled.
What was tweeted by Chesham Comedy Club
I know you won’t particularly care, but we at Chesham comedy club will not tolerate racism in any form so please consider your booking with us cancelled.
— Cheshamcomedyclub (@Cheshamcomedy) July 12, 2021
A spokesperson from the Chesham Comedy Club said: “I am very happy to say all the feedback we have had from our customers has been supportive.
“We got one negative google review, but that was from someone that had never visited the club (google removed it pretty quickly).
“Only negative comments were on Twitter, but I didn’t waste much time reading through them.”
Mr Lawrence has since deleted his Twitter account following the criticism, and even though the vast majority of messages praised the club, some on the site have slammed Chesham Comedy Club have cancelling Mr Lawrence.
There was plenty of support for Mr Lawrence on Twitter
Something tells me it was a larger backlash than just criticism from one little comedy club. The left do love a good witch hunt.
— Hatt Mancock (@cryptophiles) July 12, 2021
Let’s be honest tho only one side of politics is truly represented in comedy.
— Paul Tinay (@paultinay) July 13, 2021
Cancel culture. Just another victim of left wing witch hunting.
— Hatt Mancock (@cryptophiles) July 12, 2021
One tweet read: “Doubtless you're OK with antiWhiteism though.”
READ MORE: Andrew Lawrence dropped by his management for racist tweets
Another added: “It wasn't racist, it was a joke.
“Just because those mentioned in the joke are black does not make it racist. You call yourself a comedy club but don't even understand the jokes ahaha.”
This person said: “Cancel culture. Just another victim of left-wing witch-hunting”, whilst this user tweeted: “I remember [when the] UK understood humour.”
After the defeat at Wembley Stadium, Saka, Sancho and Rashford received support from the likes of the FA, their respected clubs and the Prime Minister.
Several people across the country subsequently have been arrested for allegedly racially abusing the three players following the final loss.
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