Singaporean Stand-Up Comedian’s Malaysian Show Faces Last Minute Cancellation
Ticketholders can request for a full refund or proceed with the Last Minute Gala Show tonight.
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Sharul Channa was all set to entertain Malaysian fans tonight at the PJ Live Arts.
This was supposed to have been part of her Just Joking! annual world tour.
In a last minute surprising turn of events, the organiser Laugh Labs Entertainment informed that the show has been cancelled.
Sharul took to her social media account to confirm the matter.
“The show got cancelled because they took away the licence or rather they took away the licence for me to perform,” she said.
Sharul informed that there had been several police reports made over an old stand-up joke she made several years ago.
A video of it had apparently been making rounds on the Internet and her permit to perform here tonight was revoked at the last minute.
Sharul said she already assured that her show tonight would not touch on religion, race and royalty when they made the application in the first place.
Meanwhile, CEO of Laugh Labs Entertainment Phoon Chi Ho in a statement said the Ministry of Communication has cancelled Sharul’s work visa following multiple police reports on one of her videos back in 2018 that touched on a 3R issue (Religion, Royalty, Race).
Malaysian media DURING show promos:
— Phoon Chi Ho🇵🇸🏳️🌈 (@chihohoho) May 17, 2024
"Sorry, we only cover int'l acts"
"We are not going ahead with the article"
"We used to feature these"
Malaysian media AFTER show cancellation:
"Hi, can we interview you?" pic.twitter.com/JIHxG982oZ
Phoon said this was extremely unexpected as they had applied for, and received all necessary permits and approvals a week before starting the ticket sales.
It is only in the last 24 hours that these reports from some members of the public came in, referencing old content that has been on Comedy Central Asia, and online, for a few years now. We did our best to put in an appeal, but unfortunately, we’ve been informed that Sharul will not be able to perform this weekend.
Phoon Chi Ho
Phoon apologised for any inconvenience caused.
What video was it?
Neither Laugh Labs nor Sharul mentioned which video specifically became the target of the police reports.
Sharul did mention that the video was a promotional video made for her show aired on Unifi TV.
Based on our checks on Facebook, there was a clip that was shared promoting Sharul’s 18 May show which featured a snippet of one of her old performances.
The clip appeared to attract unhappy comments by some from the Indian community as she had made jokes about the Hindu God Shiva.
However, we are unclear if this is the clip that is the basis of her last minute work visa revocation.
What to do if you have tickets?
You have two options.
One is to request for a full refund from Cloudjoi and the process will take about 2 weeks or earlier.
The second is to carry on watching a new “Last Minute Gala Show”.
Local acts include Mad Sabah, Rizal Van Geyzel, Shamaine Othman and Hindra Bose.
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