Two of the UK’s top comedy stars, Richard Ayoade and Jonathan Ross, have received backlash on social media after reviewing The IT Crowd writer Graham Linehan’s memoir.

Irish scribe Linehan has gone from the writer of much-loved Channel 4 comedies The IT Crowd, Father Ted and Black Books to an outspoken anti-transgender activist in recent years, leading many in the UK and Ireland to boycott him.

He fell out of public favour after several incidents where he expressed anti-transgender or transphobic views, including comparing the use of puberty blockers to Nazi eugenics and experiments on children.

Linehan has repeatedly expressed his belief that he is a victim of cancel culture, and that his views have lost him work and caused his divorce.

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Some early reviews of the book have been included as part of its online marketing. One notable name quoted alongside the memoir is Linehan’s former IT Crowd colleague, Ayoade, who played shy computer technician Maurice Moss in the Channel 4 comedy.

Ayoade’s quote reads: “Graham Linehan has long been one of my favourite writers – and this book shows that his brilliance in prose is equal to his brilliance as a screenwriter. It unfolds with the urgency of a Sam Fuller film: that of a man who has been through something that few have experienced but has managed to return, undaunted, to tell us the tale.”

A review from Ross hails Linehan as “one of the best TV comedy writers of all time”. The quote goes on to declare the book “a must-read for anyone who has ever wondered: a) how to create a hit sit-com and b) how it feels to lose everything. It’s funny, complicated and utterly compelling”.

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Journalist and transgender activist India Willoughby wrote: “The Richard Ayoade endorsement of Graham Linehan is really disappointment – because at this point in the gender war, you’d have to use a lot of cognitive dissonance not to see Glinner for who he is.”