This Saturday, September 8, a travelling show will be taking place at the Black Box Theatre, in Galway with a performance by Polish comedian Wojciech Cejrowski.

This event is being protested by Amach LGBT Galway, who say this performer’s content is widely known to be homophobic and misogynistic.

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In a statement released by Amach, the organisation said:

“The scheduled performer has a well know history of including discriminatory and inflammatory content in his programmes; content that in particular is considered homophobic, with an aim to incite the exclusion of members of the LGBT+ community as well as woman’s rights.

“This event is billed as a presentation about the performers travel to Mexico and his adventures there. The town hall theatre stated that they were ‘advised it does not touch political or religious themes’.

“AMACH! LGBT Galway undertook a process of communication with the management of the Town Hall Theatre, who are responsible for the Black Box Theatre, seeking to draw their attention to the hateful content this performer has previously stated and the concerns we felt about this performer being welcomed to a setting which is in receipt of state and local council funding.”

AMACH! LGBT Galway pointed out that “social and cultural aspects of travel will come up in this presentation” and urged the THT “to reconsider as there are a considerable number of LGBT+ Polish people in Galway who associate this performer with his extremely homophobic and transphobic agenda.”

“The expectation of discrimination is enough to cause mental anguish to them as well as the wider LGBT+ community in Galway. Unfortunately, we were unable to reach a satisfactory conclusion,” AMACH! continued.

“As members of our recognised European City of Culture, AMACH LGBT Galway support artists who are provocative and challenge ideas in a productive, open-minded manner, seeking dialogue and debate. We believe, however, that there is no place in our city for such hate-promoting performers, who seek to push a far-right agenda.

“The people of Galway have spoken in two recent referenda that we are on the side of equality, acceptance and inclusion. We are calling on the people of Galway to join us in a peaceful protest at the Black Box Theatre, this Saturday evening, from 7.00pm.”

We contacted Black Box Theatre about this event to which they stated:

“We received one query last week on this event and we contacted the promoter.

The promoter advised: ‘Wojciech Cejrowski will be Ireland next week for performances in Dublin, Galway, Cork and Belfast. The show is a presentation about Mr Cejrowski’s Travel to Mexico and his adventures there. The show does not touch political or religious themes and that it does not contain any inappropriate content.'”

For more information on this protest, see the event page on Facebook.