Fans furious

 Jim Davidson’s show was pulled just 30 minutes before he was due on stage last night.

The comic said the venue, the Corn Exchange in Exeter,  was not up to scratch with a broken PA system.

He said on Facebook that he had not been allowed in the venue until 90 minutes after the agreed time for a soundcheck.

Then he accused the managers of ‘cancelling the show rather than fix the Fisher Price PA system.’

Davidson added: ‘We were contracted to get in and sound check at 5. They let us in at 6.30. We could have fixed the sound system perhaps. But not at 6.30. And to be told ‘"you are welcome to come back when its fixed" the lad doing the sound said "Our proper speakers have blown up".

"Worse thing? The attitude of the two persons running the place and the bollocks that they come out with when they clearly know it is their fault.’

‘Exeter deserves better.’

After being criticised for the cancellation, Davidson added: ‘What you must ask is: why would I not do the show when drove 200 miles to get there and waited outside until they cancelled. Not my agent or promoter has had a call from the venue.

‘I got a message from a guy saying i had let 400 people down. Well, the venue let us all down.

If they adhered to the contract and the tec rider we could have saved this gig. But it seemed to me they couldn't care less.’

Exeter City Council, which runs the venue, today said there was no problem with the sound system, and there was no reason Davidson couldn't have performed if he wanted to.

His fans were not too impressed. either One wrote on Twitter: ‘could u explain to fans why u not appear in #exeter cornexchange  very disappointed traveled to see u and spend hard earned money

Another said: ‘You were my hero and I had the utmost respect for you,but turning up telling the women on the door to "fuck off"is inexcusable’

And Nicki Barley, said: ‘So we rushed like crazy to get to the Exeter Corn Exchange just to hear that Jim Davidson cancelled last minute with no explanation. Thanks’

Davidson also had a run-in with the four-star Penventon Park Hotel, in  Redruth, Cornwall, where he had stayed the night before. When he found the shower didn’t work., he blasted the  accommodation as being ‘run by millennials’.

But general manager Nick Lawson said it was just ‘sod’s law’ that there was no hot water in the comedian’s room, adding: ‘ If he’d let us know at the time we could have rectified the problem or even given him another room.

"It would have been nice if he had mentioned it at the time rather than taken to social media.’

In 2015 Davidson got banned from the Assembly Hall in Tunbridge Wells after slagging off the venue. 

He said: ‘'I stood in the dark for most of the performance while the lighting girl had a strop, she then put all the lights on and blinded me and the audience and refused to turn them down for 10 minutes.'The stage manager sent me on while the house lights were up and then vanished.’

The venue said he wouldn’t be allowed back over his ‘rudeness to the theatre staff and negative comments’.

And in 2003 he infamously refused to go on stage in Plymouth after taking exception to wheelchair users in the front row, who he felt unable to take the mickey out of.

Published: 9 Nov 2017