Is there such a thing as bad publicity? The ban on posters for comedian Reginald D Hunter's show has got to give him more mileage than the actual poster. Dressing in a wig and frilly collars to advertise comedy seems about as cutting edge as those tedious insurance adverts with the talking parrot. If it weren't for the ban we wouldn't have bothered to check out the website and found out that the guy was actually funny. Or as a friend who caught his show recently observed funny as fuck. Are the ads racist though?
LU said adverts for the show "Pride and Prejudice and Niggas" by African-American comedian Reginald D Hunter were "likely to offend". Mr Hunter told the BBC the term refers to people with "impoverished mentality" rather than their ethnicity or race.
Seems a weak argument from both sides - it's probably a lot easier to stick the posters up and see if anyone bothers to complain. We were more taken aback by the comparison to Bernard Manning.
Reg's publicist Paul Sullivan has said that the ban is "an overt act of censorship...It could severely affect this critically acclaimed show. Interestingly, Pride And Prejudice And Niggas is a show in which Hunter tries to make sense of the way society deals with such emotive subjects as racism."
If nothing else then there's some new material in there somewhere.
