Sky to air film about The Outcast Comic

Andrew Lawrence’s fall from grace is to be told in a new Sky documentary, Chortle can reveal.

The stand-up spectacularly fell out with most of his comedy peers in 2014 following a series of controversial statements sympathising with Ukip and criticising ‘women-posing-as-comedians’ on panel shows.

Now Emmy-award-winning film-maker Wael Dabbous – whose previous documentaries have focussed on the Syrian revolution and child prisoners in Burundi – has charted how Lawrence ‘became one of Britain's most hated comedians overnight’.

The Outcast Comic will air on Sky Arts on October 6 at 10pm, and also sets out to explore  political correctness, free speech and the boundaries of comedy, with contributors including Reginald D. Hunter, Brendon Burns, Shappi Khorsandi, Al Murray and Nish Kumar.

Lawrence became a pariah after writing a lengthy post on Facebook about lazy political comedians whom he described as ‘out of touch, smug, superannuated and overpaid… and pandering to the ever-creeping militant political correctness of the BBC.’ And he went on to describe ‘liberal back-slapping panel shows like Mock the Week’ as consisting of ‘aging, balding, fat men, ethnic comedians and women-posing-as-comedians, sit congratulating themselves on how enlightened they are about the fact that Ukip are ridiculous and pathetic.’

Fellow comedians including Dara O Briain and Frankie Boyle took him to task over his comments, and he has subsequently revelled in his outsider status, with his current show entitled The Hate Speech Tour.

Sky says the online exchanges ‘shook the comedy world to its core, and changed Lawrence's life forever’.

A spokesman said:  ‘This is a story that examines the nature of social media outrage, and looks at where we draw the line when it comes to offensive jokes that might be too dangerous to tell.’

Here's a trailer:

Published: 25 Sep 2016