First gig, 17 months after his career imploded

Andrew Lawrence is to perform his first stand-up gig since his career imploded amid a racism storm last year.

The comic’s diary emptied 17 months ago when he posted tweets focussing on the ethnicity of England footballers following the Euros final, commenting: ‘Sorry that black guys are bad at penalties.’

He was also dropped by his agents following the backlash,  and since then has been making daily videos on YouTube, where he has 88,000 subscribers.

Lawrence will be making his return to the stage at Comedy Unleash – the London club night which prides itself in letting comedians say whatever they want – later this month.

Promoters drew attention to last year’s outrage while promoting the show, saying: ‘It is ironic that Andrew, who cancelled the day after the Euros 2021 final, is making his return to stand-up during a particularly controversial World Cup.  This should be a lot of fun.’

In yesterday’s video posted to YouTube Lawrence said he wouldn’t be watching this year’s tournament because of the ‘endless sanctimonious virtue-signalling waffle about human rights abuses’.

He also accused the BBC of double standards for covering human rights concerns while also broadcasting the games.

Lawrence has continued to use YouTube to rage against being cancelled. In a video posted last week he attacked ‘people who call themselves liberals who do nothing but attack our civil liberties, revelling in cancel culture, smearing ostracising and destroying people’s livelihoods for expressing views that they disagree with’.

That video took up the view propagated by right-wing UK newspapers that US comedian Trevor Noah had branded the entire UK as racist for a routine on the Daily Show that mocked a caller to an LBC phone-in who said Rishi Sunak wasn’t English because of his skin colour.

Lawrence said: ‘Trevor Noah developed on the UK stand-up scene before he went to the US so it’s no surprise that he turned into a hard-left race-bating liar. That’s what the comedy industry does to comics in the UK.

‘Indoctrination is the price of success. It’s a cult. Every stand-up show in the UK has now become an equality diversity conveyor belt of box tickers who don’t know how to tell jokes  but are more than capable of delivering a hectoring, self-righteous Marxist lecture and making idiots pay for the privilege of listening to it.’

Last July's row was sparked when Lawrence commented following the Euro final: ‘Equality, diversity, shit penalties’ – which he followed up with: 'All I'm saying is, the white guys scored.’

After provoking a storm of protest he doubled down, adding: 'I can see that this has offended a lot of people, and I'm sorry that black guys are bad at penalties.' 

His comeback gig takes place at the Backyard Comedy Club in Bethmal Green on Monday November 21 and also features right-leaning American satirist, Tim Young.

Published: 10 Nov 2022