Comedians protest shutting down Crackhouse over open mic brouhaha

 

Comedians are protesting the temporary shutdown of the Crackhouse Comedy Club by the authorities over a controversial act during an open-mic night.

Actor Afdlin Shauki - who is also a PKR politician - likened the move by Kuala Lumpur City Hall to closing a swimming pool over the actions of a swimmer.

“Surely we wouldn’t close a pool because a swimmer took steroids. That is the fault of the swimmer, not the swimming pool,” he said in a Facebook post.

Meanwhile, comedian Kavin Jay also described it as throwing out the television over content a viewer did not like.

He added that this could have happened at any location.

The temporary closure followed a backlash over a video of a woman’s performance during an open-mic night at Crackhouse - which was deemed to have insulted Islam.

Both Afdlin and Kavin said it was against the spirit of open-mic performances to pre-check a participant’s jokes before they took the stage.

Kavin, who is a collaborator at Crackhouse, said that in the club’s case, open-mic participants are warned beforehand that they should not make jokes that are insulting to any group of people.

Describing the controversial performance as an “ambush”, he said the only people who laughed and cheered were the woman’s friends, while other members of the audience were too stunned to react.

“No one else laughed, the whole place was quiet,” he said in a video posted on social media today.

Crackhouse owner Rizal Van Gayzel similarly said that organisers were too gobsmacked to react before the women quickly got off stage.

According to Kavin, Crackhouse immediately banned the woman from performing there again after her performance.

Hence, he said the actions taken against the comedy club did not make any sense.

“Why blame someone who had no control, and did everything right,” he said.

Sabotage?

Police have arrested the woman involved, and she is being remanded for three days.

Bukit Aman is investigating the case under Section 298A of the Penal Code for causing disharmony on grounds of religion, as well under Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act for improper network use.

The woman had uploaded the video of her performance to her own YouTube channel.

Meanwhile, comedian Douglas Lim also claimed in a Facebook post that the controversial performance was an act of sabotage - alleging that the woman had performed the same routine at other places.

He said Crackhouse was not a “breeding ground” for rude performances.

“It is a safe space for comedians, both professionals and amateurs can go and try their best to tell jokes to make people laugh, it has always been that,” he said.- Mkini