Rob Beckett accidentally leads protest through Whitehall in crocs

In a situation that will surely provide some good material for future stand-up shows, Rob Beckett found himself accidentally leading a protest through London while wearing some rainbow-patterned Crocs.

It sounds like exactly the type of scenario a comedian would kill to have in their set, and yet it just happened to Beckett organically. He didn't even mean to be on foot at the time.

In a TikTok video shared this week, Beckett explained that he'd donned his Crocs in order to take a taxi ride through London so he could go and do some voiceover work for Celebs Go Dating.

However, he soon had to put his Crocs to work as he found himself in standstill traffic as a result of a protest being conducted by Just Stop Oil; an activist group which has vowed to 'take to the streets in Westminster in marches, strikes and occupations'.

Beckett was forced to walk through the protest in order to carry on his route, but at one point actually ended up out in front of the activists, accidentally leading the march.

He explained: "Well that was an absolute disaster. I ended up being in the march, just by accident, and then ITV News interviewed me and all the paparazzi started taking photos of me.

"I've got a tracksuit on and Crocs, and then I was like 'I'm not in the march, I'm not in the march', but I was in the march because I was with all these people.

"And then I got to the front, and they started filming me and it looked like I was leading the march... by accident I was leading a protest through Whitehall."

Beckett sought to track down the footage journalists had captured of him at the event, figuring that he might be able to use it to his advantage.

Please can the itv journalist that filmed me accidentally leading the just stop oil march down Whitehall in my crocs send me the footage so I can put it on my tik tok. I’ve got a book to sell and TV show to promote and I think it will go viral.

— Rob Beckett (@robbeckettcomic) October 3, 2022

In a post on Twitter after the ordeal, he wrote: "Please can the ITV journalist that filmed me accidentally leading the Just Stop Oil march down Whitehall in my crocs send me the footage so I can put it on my TikTok. I’ve got a book to sell and TV show to promote and I think it will go viral."

Beckett definitely wasn't wrong, as within just five hours of posting his TikTok it racked up more than 668,000 views.

His ordeal was further publicised on ITV News, which included a segment of the comedian explaining he was just 'trying to get to work' when he got caught up in the events.

Becket's experience could work as a cautionary tale for other people navigating London this month, as Just Stop Oil has plans to meet at Downing Street at 11am each day in order to further its protests.