AN Edinburgh Fringe venue is facing pressure to cancel a show by Amanda Knox – the American woman who was twice wrongfully convicted of killing her roommate Meredith Kercher – after the murdered woman’s sister objected to the performance.
In late 2007 and aged just 21, Kercher was raped and murdered by Rudy Guede in the central Italian city of Perugia. The case made international headlines after her roommate, Knox, was twice convicted of the killing, before being ultimately cleared by Italy’s Supreme Court in 2015.
Knox is due to perform at a Gilded Balloon venue at the Edinburgh Fringe from Friday, August 7 until Monday, August 17, in a show which is billed as her “finally getting around to being furious about the whole wrongful-imprisonment thing”.
The blurb for the show – which is called Cartwheel – further asks: “How on earth will she explain it all to her daughter, who is now asking to hear the story of ‘Mama Goes to Italy’?”
However, Stephanie Kercher – the sister of the murdered Meredith – is calling for the Gilded Balloon to cancel the performances.
"Imagine 20 years after Meredith's death, your pain is turned into someone else's laughter,” she said, accusing Knox of using her sister’s death “to debut a comedy show”.
"I'm very aware that in high-profile cases everyone has their own opinions on guilt and innocence and I also agree with freedom of speech,” Kercher went on. “However, when someone is still using Meredith's name to support themselves, and furthermore, when a comedy is linked to an individual case and individual person, I cannot fathom how rape and murder can be laughed about and I cannot understand how one person's behaviour at the police station can be the subject of the comedy show.
"Meredith, my sister, was a very clever and witty person and loved by so many for those very reasons. She was a girl's girl who you could rely on and would very much be the strong courageous woman today.”
In response to Knox claiming that Meredith would have found the show funny, Kercher added: “She absolutely would not find comedy surrounding these issues funny and I believe this goes against everything that inspirational women are still fighting for today."
Sally Alington, a long-time friend of the Kercher family, started a petition on Change.org which has more than 1000 signatures calling for the show to be cancelled.
Alington said: "To see this distasteful and disrespectful performance being given the green light to go ahead under the label of a 'stand-up comedy' with 'adult' themes when we are talking about the rape and murder of a young woman totally beggars belief.
"This isn't just wholly inappropriate and hurtful to family and friends of Meredith, this goes far beyond that. It normalises and trivialises violence against women.
“I am urging the organisers from the Gilded Balloon and the Fringe Festival to adjust their moral compasses, do the right thing and cancel these shows.”
A spokesperson for the Gilded Balloon said: "The Edinburgh Festival 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’s long-standing commitment to freedom of expression (within the confines of the law) and ensure our audiences can make informed choices.
“Artists and companies choose to participate at our venue and take on the financial and creative responsibility for their work. Amanda's show is a one-woman piece exploring themes of motherhood, presented independently by her."
