Gervais defends prostitute-killing gag

The comic follows up the gag in his current tour, which kicked off in Glasgow last week, with the line: ‘I won’t be doing that in Ipswich.’

But the joke has predictably caused outrage in the Suffolk town where five sex workers were recently killed.

Jim Duell, the father of 19-year-old victim Tania Nicol said the gag was in bad taste.

He told the Ipswich Evening Star: ‘These days they want to make a joke out of everything.

‘If this comedian is saying things like this he is trampling on a lot of emotions. I feel he's just being uncaring, quite honestly.’

However, Gervais said he meant no offence and was referring to a conversation a long before the Ipswich murders about some people’s desperation to be famous.

He said: ‘I do want people to know that that happened five years ago and is not related to anything now.

‘I hadn't considered whether I would or wouldn't do it in Ipswich, but I probably won't. It is a sensitive issue. What has happened there is probably so overwhelming in people's minds.

‘That is the problem with comedy, a joke that is funny today can be a terrible faux pas tomorrow.’

Despite the controversy, dozens of people queued at the Ipswich Regent this week from the crack of dawn to buy tickets for new dates on Gervais’s Fame tour.

Published: 18 Jan 2007