'Father Ted The Musical' and the cowardice of the media class

The Ted musical was ready to go. Jimmy Mulville and Hat Trick put an end to it

Just look at this pathetic display.

As with my colleagues on the Father Ted Musical, no-one will ever actually say out loud what you’re supposed to have done to deserve your punishment. Jimmy Mulville of Hat Trick productions offered me £200,000 to walk away from the Father Ted musical and still refuses to tell me why. Can I not at least ask for an official statement that clarifies his position on the destruction of women’s sports, or the sexual coercion of lesbians, or the increasing numbers of detransitioners who are telling frighteningly consistent stories?

Can I ask Sonia Friedman to say why her friend JK Rowling can have a show on the West End but mine must be pre-emptively cancelled? Why, when Rowling and I share the same beliefs?

Furthermore, If Jimmy Mulville doesn’t want to make the musical with me, why doesn’t he release the rights so I can do it with Arthur Mathews and Neil Hannon, who I’m sure stand with me on these issues? The show is written, the songs are there. What is stopping them from allowing us to stage it?

Joe Duffy, is this not something your listeners would be interested in? The Irish writer of Father Ted is having his own show stolen from him by British producers for opinions that I know I share with the vast majority of sane people in this world. The same sort of people who phoned into your show, Joe, and wrote to the Sunday Independent to thank Eilis O’Hanlon for her piece.

Joe, Father Ted was a pretty big show in Ireland, right? Why am I being silenced, then? Why are my perfectly commonplace opinions suddenly taboo, and my name synonymous with bigotry? It’s because of the same people who are now calling you and your listeners bigots. Men like the deeply disturbed Aidan Comerford, who has spent the last four years trying to shame and silence women with the single-mindedness of a frustrated serial killer.

A creature like Comerford doesn’t deserve a moment of my time. I shouldn’t even know his name. But I would debate him any day of the week for the same reasons that Ben Cooper sleeps like a baby the night before he has to cross-examine anyone from Stonewall. Namely, these are very stupid people who have painted themselves into a corner, and any scrutiny works on them like water on the Wicked Witch of the West. They have spent the last five years defending the indefensible, destroying lives and livelihoods for the fun of it, while supporting a movement that irreparably harms children and young people.

So why are so many in media still so afraid of them? So afraid that they would (to pick one completely random example out of a hat) deny the public the Father Ted Musical because its creator believes that women exist and their rights are important?

This is an injustice. I would even go so far as to say it’s a great injustice. It’s not just my show, it belongs to Arthur Mathews, Neil Hannon and Paul Woodfull too. The Father Ted Musical was my pension and they’re refusing to release it because I’m the victim of village gossip on a global scale, and a movement that seeks to erase women and groom and endanger children.

I’ll keep saying this until it gets through to people. #FreeFatherTed.