Women working the UK comedy circuit have set up a WhatsApp group blacklist to warn each other of male stars’ predatory behaviour, it has emerged today.

Comedian Daniel Sloss has gone on record, speaking to The Times, telling them that female comedians set up online groups to warn others about people they’ve worked with and had difficult experiences with, including predatory behaviour.

Mr Sloss told the times: “I know for many, many years that women have been warning each other about Russell.”

At least five other male comedians have been named in the conversations, MailOnline reports.

They include famous stars of TV, radio and stage - some still working, others who have disappeared from the limelight.

Mr Sloss said there were ‘many stories with varying degrees of severity’.

Comedian Sara Pascoe has also claimed there are two well-known predators in the comedy circuit.

She indicated that there is more than one predator in the comedy industry, including “a man that’s assaulted men.”

Comedian Stevie Martin disclosed the WhatsApp group existed as long ago as 2020, telling the Telegraph: “A Whatsapp-based blacklist began circulating of predatory male comics and promoters. It’s growing every day.”

  • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝OPMAEnglish
    10·
    1 year ago

    The group was founded by Angela Barnes, Sameena Zehra and Pauline Eyre:

    The Tube experience and the murder of young Australian comic Eurydice Dixon when she walked home from a gig in Melbourne last year sparked a need to do something positive. So Angela, together with fellow stand-ups Sameena Zehra and Pauline Eyre, set up the Home Safe Collective at the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe. She explains how it came about.

    “A WhatsApp group of female comics started talking about what practical thing we could do. We set up a taxi account with a company that uses police-checked drivers and we got about £5,000 from donations, so any female comic could use the service if she didn’t want to walk home from a gig late at night and couldn’t afford the fare.”

    The initiative was recognised with the prestigious Edinburgh Comedy Awards panel prize, which is worth £5,000. “It was such a wonderful surprise, and fantastic to receive it – and the prize means we can do Home Safe again this year without fund-raising,” the comic says.