Fringe boss warns of 'slippery slope' as he defends Amanda Knox Edinburgh show, insisting 'poor taste isn't reason to cancel'
Meredith's sister slammed the idea of the show, saying 'Meredith absolutely wouldn't find these topics of any comedy value'
The boss of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society has told LBC it would be a "slippery slope" to cancel Amanda Knox's comedy show just because some deem it to be in "poor taste".
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Knox, who was acquitted of killing the British student Meredith Kercher in Italy in 2007, is launching her own solo comedy show at the Edinburgh Fringe about the murder of her flatmate.
The show has already faced backlash, including from Meredith's sister Stephanie, as well as from a petition set up by a friend of Meredith’s friend calling for the show the be axed
The petition claims that the show disrespects her memory, as well as risks normalising violence against women and girls by making light of the horrific event.
But Tony Lankester, the Chief Executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, says that even if a show is deemed to be in "poor taste", it would be a "slippery slope" to cancel it and potentially threaten free speech.
He told LBC: "I've seen the petition and I've been in contact with the organisers and had a dialogue with them. Our position is this: as a parent, I think what happened to Meredith is unbelievably sad and it's tragic, the pain that they must live with every day is extraordinary.
"That said, the position of The Fringe is that this is an open access platform and just because something is in poor taste… and I'm not saying that this is… but just because someone deems something to be in poor taste, or lacking in judgement, or crass, or whatever the case may be, that's not a reason to cancel something."
He added that the only circumstances in which the Fringe would ever cancel something is if it "broke the law" or if "someone was crossing a red line, if it was inciting violence, or engaging in hate speech".
He added: "The open access nature of platform means that sometimes we have to live with discomfort. We have to have some things on the programme that while personally we may not have chosen perhaps, or would choose to go and see, we have to respect the right to free speech, and we have to respect that.
"Amanda, for example, has the right to earn a living. She is an entertainer, she's a performer, and she is using the Fringe Stage to tell her story.
"That's what it's there for. I think cancelling it or pulling it, just because we don't necessarily agree with an element of it it's a slippery slope from there."
It comes after Stephanie Kercher told LBC News we "don't need a comedy show" to honour the memory of her sister.
She said: “I haven't seen the show. I don't want to see the show. But there is a description there that's 18+. It says descriptions of violence. It's obviously got the case at some point involved in it.
"I don't think we need to honour Meredith's memory in a comedy show. You know, she's honoured elsewhere in the hearts of all those who knew her and further afield.
"That's the legacy we would like to leave for Meredith. It's not for someone else to decide if her name's included in comedy. It sets a precedent giving a platform to an individual case and an individual person based on this."
The show will run for 11 days and will kick off on Friday. According to a spokesperson for Knox, it will honour Kercher’s memory.
The show’s title, Cartwheel, is a reference to a story that circulated in the press at the time, which claimed Knox did cartwheels in the police station after her friend’s murder.
Last week, Knox told the Telegraph: "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."
When asked if Kercher would have found her show funny, she said: "Yeah, I think so. I mean, it is funny!"
Stephanie Kercher said: "The story has very much been told many times, and it's something that we keep having to go through all the time, which is extremely painful.
"I don't think we need to honour Meredith's memory in a comedy show," she went on. "It's not for someone else to decide if her name's included in comedy.
The venue for the show, the Gilded Balloon Teviot, maintained that the Fringe Festival offers a platform for a wide range of voices in line with the commitment to freedom of expression.
Since being released from prison, Knox has released two books and served as an executive producer on the TV drama, The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox.
Now aged 39, Knox is married with two children, and lives in Washington State.
Knox, originally from Seattle in the US, lived with Kercher, from Surrey, as language exchange students in Perugia, Italy.
Following Kercher’s brutal murder, Knox, then 20, was arrested alongside her then-boyfriend Raffaelle Sollecito.
Knox and Sollecito would go on to serve four years in an Italian prison before being acquitted through an appeal, and finally returned home to the US in 2011.
Their convictions were reinstated by a retrial in 2014, but they were overturned by Italy’s top appeals court in 2015.
Rudy Guede was found guilty of the murder after his fingerprints were found at the scene and went on to serve 13 years of a 16-year sentence.