Amanda Knox defends Fringe comedy show over Kercher trivializing claims

Amanda Knox defended her Edinburgh Fringe comedy show against accusations that it trivializes the 2007 killing of her former flatmate Meredith Kercher, saying the production honors Kercher's memory as it began an 11-night run at the festival.

Knox, 39, an American convicted and later acquitted of Kercher's murder and sexual assault in Italy, made her defense in an Instagram post on Thursday. The post followed a BBC interview in which Kercher's sister, Stephanie Kercher, said the show 'normalizes and trivializes violence against women.'

In her post, Knox wrote that the show 'honors Meredith Kercher's memory and calls out the violence that was done to her and to me.' The production, titled Cartwheel, opened amid criticism from Kercher's family and a campaign to have it removed.

What the show contains

The show is marketed as the work of a woman 'approaching forty, juggling motherhood and finally getting around to being furious about the whole wrongful-imprisonment thing.' The Gilded Balloon, the venue staging it, frames the hour around Knox's imprisonment and the strain of explaining her past to her young daughter. The Fringe is an annual arts festival in the Scottish capital.

In the venue's description, Knox faces a daughter who is 'now asking to hear the story of Mama Goes to Italy,' while half the world tells her to get over the case and the other half still believes she is guilty. It asks whether she can protect her child, 'knowing her own mother couldn't protect her no matter how hard she tried.'

The show opened Friday, August 7, at the Wine Bar within the Gilded Balloon Teviot complex, and runs nightly at 8:15 p.m. through August 17.

The title refers to accounts that Knox turned cartwheels at a police station on the night she was arrested, while she waited to be questioned after Kercher's death. The show marks Knox's move into stand-up, at the Gilded Balloon, one of the festival's four biggest venue operators.

The sister's objection

Stephanie Kercher told BBC Breakfast that comedy was the wrong form for the case, even as she acknowledged it was 'there to push the boundaries.' 'It's left a massive void in our lives, and Amanda is naturally free to continue with her life as she wishes, but I think the problem with this particular project is that it is comedy,' she said.

She said the case was not a general subject for humor, and that comedy aimed at a specific victim crossed a line. 'It's not a generic topic, it's targeting an individual traumatic case and an individual person and family, and I feel very strongly that Meredith wouldn't agree with that,' she said. She also said she was concerned about the show's impact on her family and others affected by the case.

Kercher also rejected Knox's suggestion that Meredith would have enjoyed the show, saying her sister 'absolutely would not find comedy surrounding these issues funny.' She put the objection in personal terms, telling the BBC: 'Imagine 20 years after Meredith's death, your pain is turned into someone else's laughter.'

A petition to cancel

An online petition demanding the show be pulled was created on August 3 by Sally Alington, a friend of the Kercher family who knew Meredith before she left for Perugia, and was addressed to both the Gilded Balloon and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. By Thursday night it had gathered almost 4,500 signatures, after passing 1,000 in its first 48 hours.

To see this distasteful and disrespectful performance being given the green light to go ahead under the label of a 'stand-up comedy' with 'adult' themes when we are talking about the rape and murder of a young woman totally beggars belief

The petition states that the show 'mocks the horrific events surrounding Meredith's murder and aims to somehow turn this tragedy into entertainment,' and argues the production risks 'normalising violence against women by making light of such a harrowing event.' It calls on the festival to recognise that 'freedom comes with responsibility,' and asks signatories to help ensure 'that tragedy is not trivialised in the name of entertainment.'

Knox's team told reporters the petition 'contains false assumptions and mischaracterises the show,' and said neither its author nor anyone who signed it had seen Cartwheel.

Beyond the Joke reported that Alington had not seen the production when she began the campaign, and that the show was opening the same week the petition went live. Knox made the same point in her Instagram post.

'A petition to cancel a show no one has seen, on the grounds of false accusations intended to shame and vilify a wronged woman into silence, is not an argument against Cartwheel,' Knox wrote. She added that the Fringe 'is the perfect place for a show like this.'

The venue's response

The Gilded Balloon has said the show is 'in line with the Fringe's long-standing commitment to freedom of expression,' and told Edinburgh Live it aims to 'provide a platform for a wide range of voices' while performers 'take on the financial and creative responsibility for their work.' A spokesperson for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe said the festival 'does not select or curate work' and had been an 'open-access festival since its inception.'

The 2007 killing in Perugia

Meredith Kercher, a British exchange student, was killed in Perugia, Italy, in November 2007. Knox, a student from Seattle who shared a house with her, was arrested days later and, in 2009, convicted of murder and sexual assault alongside her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito.

Knox served four years in an Italian prison before an appeals court acquitted her.

Rudy Guede, an Ivory Coast-born man whose fingerprints were found at the scene, was found guilty of Kercher's murder and served 13 years of a 16-year sentence. His fingerprints were the key physical evidence against him, and the 'wrongful-imprisonment' framing that runs through Cartwheel draws on Knox's own period in custody.

What Knox has said

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph earlier in the week, Knox said Meredith would have appreciated the show. 'Meredith was really sophisticated and smart but she was also fun… I think that she would appreciate the show, because it grapples with what it means to be a young woman, and it's honest,' she said.

Stephanie Kercher disputed that reading of her sister. She described Meredith as 'a very clever and witty person and loved by so many for those very reasons' and 'a girl's girl who you could rely on,' and said the comedy 'goes against everything that inspirational women are still fighting for today.'

Stephanie has backed the petition and appealed directly to Knox, asking 'how would you feel if it was your sister?' She said she felt strongly that the show 'should be something that's not given a platform.'

She also said her objection did not turn on whether people believed Knox was innocent. 'It's not about whether people think she's guilty or innocent, if someone else was doing the show specifically against Meredith, I would still feel the same,' she said, though she called it 'an added wound' that the show came from Knox.

Neither the Gilded Balloon nor the Edinburgh Festival Fringe has said it will withdraw the show. The venue has pointed to the festival's open-access model, under which acts are not curated and performers carry responsibility for their own material.

As of Thursday, the show remained on the Fringe program, scheduled for 11 consecutive nights through August 17.