{"id":730578,"date":"2026-08-07T16:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T16:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/730578\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T16:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T16:24:09","slug":"not-afraid-of-controversy-edinburgh-fringe-rejects-calls-to-cancel-amanda-knox-comedy-edinburgh-festival-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/730578\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Not afraid of controversy\u2019: Edinburgh fringe rejects calls to cancel Amanda Knox comedy | Edinburgh festival 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Edinburgh festival fringe has said it is \u201cnot afraid of controversy\u201d after it faced calls to cancel a sold-out show by Amanda Knox<\/a>, who was wrongfully convicted for the 2007 murder of her flatmate Meredith Kercher in Italy.<\/p>\n

Knox\u2019s comedy show, Cartwheel, has been condemned by Kercher\u2019s family, with her sister, Stephanie, saying it \u201cnormalises and trivialises violence against women\u201d. A petition<\/a> calling for it to be cancelled has been signed by more than 9,000 people.<\/p>\n

Knox, from Seattle in the US, and her then Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted in 2009 for the murder and sexual assault of Kercher, a British foreign exchange student living in Perugia. They maintained their innocence and, after years of legal battles, were acquitted by Italy\u2019s highest court in 2015.<\/p>\n

In a statement posted on Instagram, Knox, 39, said of the petition: \u201cCartwheel is a show about motherhood, raising a daughter in a world that is unfair and dangerous for women, and what it costs to be the kind of mother who tells her the truth about that. Neither the author of this petition nor anyone who signed it has seen Cartwheel.\u201d<\/p>\n

A poster advertising Knox\u2019s show in Edinburgh. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Knox, now a married mother of two, said the petition contained \u201cmany false assumptions and completely mischaracterises the show\u201d. She added: \u201cCartwheel honours Meredith Kercher\u2019s memory and calls out the violence that was done to her and to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knox has previously said the show did not \u201cjoke about Meredith\u2019s death\u201d.<\/p>\n

Cartwheel is a reference to a story that alleged Knox did cartwheels in the police station after Kercher\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Tony Lankester, the director of the Fringe Society<\/a>, told BBC Radio Scotland: \u201cWe\u2019re not afraid of controversy. The decision as to whether or not [the show] goes ahead lies with herself and it lies with the venue.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cAs sympathetic as we are to individual cases that crop up, and absolutely as a parent I can relate to the pain that they describe, but that can\u2019t be a criteria, it can\u2019t be one of the lenses that we look through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gilded Balloon Teviot, the show\u2019s venue, said in a statement: \u201cThe Edinburgh festival<\/a> fringe is an open-access festival. As a fringe venue, we provide a platform for a wide range of voices, in line with the fringe\u2019s longstanding commitment to freedom of expression (within the confines of the law) and ensure our audiences can make informed choices.<\/p>\n

Meredith Kercher was murdered in 2007 in Perugia, Italy. Photograph: PA<\/p>\n

\u201cArtists and companies choose to participate at our venue and take on the financial and creative responsibility for their work. Amanda\u2019s show is a one-woman piece exploring themes of motherhood, presented independently by her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stephanie Kercher told BBC Breakfast<\/a> that Knox was \u201cnaturally free to continue with her life as she wishes, but I think the problem with this particular project is that it is comedy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd whilst I appreciate comedy is there to push the boundaries \u2026 it very much normalises and trivialises violence against women and Meredith in particular.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rudy Hermann Guede was convicted of Kercher\u2019s murder in 2008<\/a>. He was released from prison in 2021 after serving 13 years of a 16-year term.<\/p>\n

Claire Cochrane, a professor emeritus of theatre studies at the University of Worcester, said: \u201cWhat happened to both Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox<\/a> was dreadful and of course I understand the Kercher family\u2019s continuing grief.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, vociferous campaigns mounted against artistic product based on unexamined assumptions about content and motivation undermines genuine attempts to deal with the personal legacies of violence and tragedy.<\/p>\n

\u201cComedy thoughtfully deployed can be both cathartic and therapeutic. I\u2019m not going to be able to see Knox\u2019s performance in Edinburgh<\/a>. But I think it should go ahead and be properly and thoughtfully scrutinised.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Edinburgh festival fringe has said it is \u201cnot afraid of controversy\u201d after it faced calls to cancel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":730579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-730578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/730579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}