The show might be over, but the battle to right a terrible wrong goes on...

Dear Petition Supporters

Here we are at the mid-point of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Cartwheel has thankfully come to an end, but sadly it ran for all 11 scheduled nights due to the lack of empathy and judgement applied by Tony Lankester CEO of the Fringe and Karen Koren, owner of the Gilded Balloon theatre.

If we do the maths: 11 nights x 150 seats x £16.50 = 1,650 people saw this distasteful spectacle and the revenue made on those ticket sales would have been just over £27,000 to be shared between all the parties involved. Taking into consideration all the costs of putting on the show, flying over to the UK, staying in Edinburgh, paying the production teams... it truly beggars belief that human decency and the right to freedom from harassment for the Kercher Family and others affected has been ignored and clearly come at such a cheap price. 

But let's just think about the true cost here...

• The Kercher Family at the centre of this tragedy have had all the pain of the last two decades compounded and belittled by an 11-night comedy run
• 45,000 people are so angry and upset about what has happened they have willingly put their names on this petition (thank you all)
• 400 people have taken time to comment on the petition and share their shock and disgust in words and videos (thank you all)
• There have been emails to us, messages on social media from people who are friends and family of murder victims,  from people who have experienced rape or violence towards women, from the people of Perugia, from the people of Edinburgh . All united in their total disbelief that this show was allowed to go on.
• Amanda Knox deemed the surrounding investigation to be included, and it is that very concern that trivialises the death of Meredith.  The picture on this post is from a review by Saskia Rowlands of the Mirror "Stephanie's concerns were wholly validated" , "There were constant quips about the case". 

 The Fringe seem to have distributed the same standard copy & paste response, as it has been received by many who contacted them and failed to reply directly and sincerely to the petition organisers and the family.

Karen Koren from the Gilded Balloon told the Scotsman a couple of days ago:  “We’ve had a lot of people emailing and calling, but it’s not enough to be considered harassment or anything like that."  

There are 45,000 people here who say you are wrong! We took a moment to download the petition and it currently spans 2,200 pages! We will happily deliver this to your theatre if that will make you realise the impact of what you have done. 

After shirking all responsibility for content that goes on stage at The Fringe, Tony Lankester simply said "we are not afraid of controversy" and defended the right to free speech  and the dangerous territory of getting involved, yet the Fringe does cancel shows, does make decisions based upon tastefulness of content let's just remind ourselves of cancelled artists:

• Jerry Sadowitz (2022) for racism, sexism, homophobia, misogyny
• Graham Linehan (2023) the Father Ted creator for his views on Transgender issues
• Multiple Pro-Isreal shows in 2024 & 2025 because of the Middle East conflict
• The City (2014) an Israeli government funded hip hop act

We are not finished with our battle here. What happened was wrong on every level.

We are therefore leaving the petition open as while we cannot Stop Cartwheel happening at the Fringe, we can certainly stop it ever happening again. We therefore will use the support from this petition to seek:

1. A formal public apology from The Fringe Festival and The Gilded Balloon to The Kercher Family, all those who have been affected by murder and rape and found this performance to be abhorrent and to everyone who has taken time to sign this petition.
2. An explanation from the government in relation to allowing controversial international artists into the UK, in this case for a comedy at the expense of a grieving British family, who lost a daughter & sister in a violent rape and murder and have now been thrown back into the public eye, not at their own wish.  The Home Office rightly intervened when Kanye West was due to perform at Wireless - they should review all circumstances around this case and explain what on earth they were thinking.
3. A better process for theatres and stage content which seems so terrifyingly unregulated / self-regulated. Freedom of Speech is one thing, not when it comes at the expense of Freedom from Harassment and purposeful suffering to a grieving family.

So our battle continues to stop this from ever happening again. Please continue to sign and share - The Kercher Family and everyone affected should not have had to go through this.

Thank you