I am a great believer that there should be no unbroachable topic in comedy, as long as the person broaching it does so in a funny enough fashion. This, however, does not mean that this person should always be entitled to do so. Had Jimmy Savile launched into a new stand-up career eulogizing the joys of pedophilia and necrophilia, I am not sure that he would have been playing to enthusiastic audiences, no matter how good the jokes, and while Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor proved to be inadvertently hilarious while discussing everything from Pizza Express to sweating on the BBC show Newsnight, I am not sure he would be cheered to the rafters at an open-mic night at his local Jongleurs.
I think we can add Amanda Knox to the ranks of those who should not be performing comedy, but unfortunately visitors to the Edinburgh Festival this year are being offered her first stand-up show. Named Cartwheel, after the antics that she allegedly performed when she was first accused of her friend Meredith Kercher’s murder in Italy in 2007 – she said she did the splits instead – Knox is said to see the show as being “inspirational,” rather than simply cynical. She commented that “It is about acknowledging that bad things happen in life which will turn you upside down. But it’s also about not letting that arrest your momentum because the only way you can land on your feet is through those difficult experiences.”
Knox, it should be noted, was acquitted of Kercher’s killing after her initial conviction, which led her to spend four years in prison. Even though she was re-convicted of the murder in 2014 in absentia, this conviction was quashed and she has been at liberty to rebuild her life as a public figure. Which she has done, loudly and almost aggressively. “Opportunity” Knox has published two books, Waiting To Be Heard and Free: My Search for Meaning, since she was released from prison, which mix her own account of what happened to her with musing on what her subsequent life as a member of what she calls “the Sisterhood of Ill Repute.”
Nobody should begrudge Knox the opportunity to make a living, but the very public fashion in which she has continued to trumpet her complete lack of involvement with a notorious and vicious crime has continued to sit uneasily with many, not least Kercher’s family. They have expressed their horror at Cartwheel going ahead, with her sister Stephanie saying: “Our family’s pain is immense. I can’t explain to you how much pain our family have been through, and also we’re talking two decades later now, this pain… because this is associated with an individual case and individual person, I think that’s where the worry lies here for me, because who else is this going to then open up this opportunity for?” She also addressed Knox directly: “Think about the family here, think about her friends and to turn the tables if it was your sister that this had happened to, because I know you have a sister as well.”
None of this appears to have made an impact, and Cartwheel, which begins at the Gilded Balloon Teviot today, is going ahead as planned. The content warning suggests that the show will contain “Scenes of a sexual nature, strong language/swearing, descriptions of violence.” The latter, especially, will undoubtedly make for rib-tickling stuff, although Knox solemnly informed the Telegraph that “I don’t joke about Meredith’s death. I joke a lot about how I was vilified, but I don’t joke about her murder. That’s just a line for me. I set red lines for myself that other comedians don’t.” Given that even Joan Rivers in her prime would have struggled to make the murder of a young woman a topic of mirth, this is less noble restraint and more a recognition that there are things that should never be played for laughs.
The question, then, is what exactly Knox hopes to achieve by her ten-night stint in Edinburgh. She is aware that there has always been a strain of public opinion that is not wholly convinced of her innocence, despite her acquittal, and has clearly decided that laughter is the best medicine. She told the Telegraph that Kercher would have approved of her decision to go on stage and battle for laughs, saying “I think that she would appreciate the show, because it grapples with what it means to be a young woman, and it’s honest.” And it might be that when Knox takes to the stage tonight she reveals a rare gift for comedy that can establish a promising new career for herself. But set against this, the residual tastelessness of the enterprise, coupled with the ongoing disrespect to the memory of the woman that she called – and continues to call – her friend, might mean that all but the most ghoulish of Edinburgh patrons might avoid this particular exercise in hard Knox.
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