Comedian Sean Hughes has pulled out of his Devizes show this weekend, infurating Jo Batchelor, owner of Devizes Books – who must now refund more than £1,500 worth of tickets.
“We had sold 107 tickets at £14.50 each, which means we will have to refund all that money. It is most annoying,” she said after getting the news on Tuesday.
“The organiser told us that Mr Hughes was cancelling because his father died. But I went on the internet and his father died before the Edinburgh Festival in August, so I don’t understand why the delay in telling us the show was off.”
Mr Hughes was due to perform in the Ceres Hall at the Corn Exchange on Saturday. His London promoter Will Briggs was unavailable for comment yesterday.
Ms Batchelor added: “He only booked the gig a month ago and it is very ambitious to sell 400 tickets when you’re not on the spot to do so. This couldn’t have come at a worse time of year for us. Instead of selling Christmas books we will have to mess around giving refunds.”
He has run the Greenwich Comedy Festival for the past two years and also organises comedy nights at venues in the South West.
Mr Briggs has indicated to the town council, which owns and runs the Corn Exchange, that he intends to reschedule Mr Hughes’s show for next year.
Comedy nights in Devizes have grown since Martin Brown started the Moonrakers Comedy Club at the Bell by the Green in Estcourt Street last year.
Mr Hughes’s show would have come hot on the heels of the Devizes International Comedy and Ukulele Festival organised by Mark Cann from Patney, chief executive of the charity British Forces Foundation.
Veteran comedian Jim Davidson played one sell-out night in the Corn Exchange and the other two nights of the festival did good business.
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