Johnny Vegas sues Guardian

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on May 15th, 2008

Performer Johnny Vegas has sued Guardian News & Media, publishers of UK publications The Guardian and the Observer, over a pair of articles about a recent Vegas appearance at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London. The initial piece was a blog posting by Guardian columnist Mary O’Hara, who was present at the performance and the other, titled “Sorry, but that really isn’t funny, Johnny,” appeared in the Observer. Read the account of Vegas’ lawsuit here

(The Clune piece has been taken down. As has the other article. But we found a cached version of the a blog posting by the Guardian’s O’Hara.) Here’s a taste:

Along with hundreds of others I watched a set during which Johnny Vegas, without any discernible artistic or comedic merit, gratuitously groped a young woman on stage. Judging from some of the furious postings on the internet that followed the gig, I was not the only person asking if he had crossed a line.

Vegas stepped on stage to cheers and immediately announced that he had no material, and that he was there mostly to get laid. There followed a short meandering ramble (mainly about lap dancers) before he turned his attention to the audience – and to one young woman in particular in the front row who, he announced, he wanted to be “inside”. Anyone who has seen Vegas live knows to expect the unexpected, and you take a front row seat at your peril. He can appear deliriously and uncontrollably drunk and casually offensive, and he isn’t afraid of injecting a dose of tension by involving members of the audience in his erratic act. But something backfired this time.

The woman he focused on was about 18 or 19 and was very obviously unnerved by his attention. I saw her expression clearly – I was in the front row too, just three seats along. Vegas insisted that she allow herself to be carried on to the stage by six members of the audience – he called them “pall bearers”. She must pretend to be dead, he said, and he would bring her back to life with an onstage kiss. He warned her that there probably would be tongues. As James Williams, writing on the NOTBBC forum after the gig, put it, “Honestly, you couldn’t have found a nervier or more passive girl if you’d scoured all of London – she was like a rabbit in the headlights, but she was giggling and clearly somewhat enjoying the attention, so it just sort of went ahead without so much as a yes or no from her.” As she was carried on stage, Vegas repeatedly goaded one of the pallbearers to “finger” the girl.

And on like that.

Vegas stated: “A massive part of my act has always been involving my audience. If somebody comes along and doesn’t find it funny, thats one thing, but unfortunately this person came along and tried to suggest that something much darker had gone on which is quite upsetting to me.”

We’re not familiar with British libel laws (they differ significantly from ours), but we’re not so sure that suing is the best path to take here. There were plenty of witnesses. The multitude of comments on the Guardian blog (which, unfortunately didn’t survive along with the cached version of the posting) didn’t dispute the facts. They mainly argued about the artistic merit of the “performance” and whether or not it was “funny.” And, of course, much speculation focused on whether O’Hara was a stick in the mud, a jackass, a prude or a moron. If we recall correctly, the commenters seemed pretty split down the middle, with maybe a small majority landing in the appalled/didn’t find it funny camp.

None of the commenters disputed the basic facts of what happened. They strained mightily to explain why the performance was funny. (What’s the old expression? If you gotta explain it, it ain’t a joke.) It seemed as though their main objective wasn’t so much to enlighten the various “nitwits” who don’t get the “brilliant” Vegas as to excuse any possible criminal (or, at the least, boorish) behavior at the Bloomsbury that night.

It seems rather odd that Vegas would sue. After all, he got precisely what he wanted– press and plenty of it. What does he care if a blogger for the Guardian is shocked and appalled at his hijinks? Is that not what he lives for? Isn’t that the desired effect? It would seem that bringing such a suit would invite further scrutiny of the events of the evening– necessarily minus any debate as to whether his conduct was “art” or “funny”– which might set off a chain of events that could have serious ramifications.