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| One of the Artistic Directors at the publicly-funded ie taxpayer-funded Sandpits Art |
I am blocked from posting on Facebook for 30 days for posting:
AK von London:
"oh i've been meaning to delete you for a while
this is, of course, the perfect reason
but it's mainly because i find you boring now
you're insanity used to make me laugh
but now it makes me pity you
and i abhor people who move me to pity"
This was just abuse that Akkas Al-Ali was hurling at me for being rather rude about his plugging of a play that I thought was dreary in the extreme.
AK von London http://www.akkas.co.uk/bio said:
"Amid the boring stuff, like essay writing and reading dense theoretical texts, I get to watch stuff like this play produced by Al-Rowwad in the Aida refugee camp just outside Bethlehem - which makes it all worthwhile. (Arabic with French subtitles.)"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chm5qEmG_LU Do have a look, dear reader! It really is dire.
I said:
Akkas is now reduced to plugging this sort of thing. He is very angry with me for making rude comments about it, but it is just so AWFUL that I fear the Israelis will want to kill the Palestinians with even greater ferocity. I can just imagine the Palestinians saying: "No, please no more of this pro-Palestinian propaganda that fails on so many levels! You are just making things worse for us!"
He said via inbox:
"oh i've been meaning to delete you for a while
this is, of course, the perfect reason
but it's mainly because i find you boring now
you're insanity used to make me laugh
but now it makes me pity you
and i abhor people who move me to pity"
I published this, and it seems Akkas has reported his own comments.
Dave Wells
What audience was this intended for ? I mean where, what nation ?
Claire Khaw
A Facebook friend who shall remain nameless:
"I used to drama at GCSE we produced more entertaining stuff than that"
Claire Khaw
The cast is meant to be represent the Palestinians.
Claire Khaw
"you're a joke of course
oh poor claire" Akkas rants ...
Claire Khaw
You're really really bored. What do you go and do? Watch an Arabic play with French subtitles!
Claire Khaw
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/7325440/The-Promise-at-the-Orange-Tree-Theatre-review.html was truly superb.
"In an age of uninformed hysteria, this even-handed, well-researched look back at history-in-the-making is as welcome as it is quietly fascinating."
Claire Khaw
http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/27293/the-promise
"The title for Ben Brown’s gripping political play draws on the Balfour Declaration of November 1917, when the British government promised Zionists the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jews. But the original promise of “next year in Jerusalem” has an ancient scriptural basis."
Claire Khaw
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/the-promise-orange-tree-theatre-london-1908299.html
"Did the state of Israel come into being because of the British prime minister's fury at his girlfriend's marrying an anti-Zionist?"
Claire Khaw
Akkas has unfriended me.
Claire Khaw
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Promise-Ben-Brown/dp/0571268870 [the play]
Claire Khaw
Akkas:
"ha ha ha ha ha ha
that really did make me laugh out loud
the problem with you, of course, is that you're not even a has-been because you never were anything to begin with. this realisation gnaws at you constantly and you hate it being pointed out. so you fixate on silly little causes like jimmy saville because it gives you something to do between breakfast and supper.
i think the timeframe we gave for you achieving anything with your miserable life (back in may 2012) was "this time next year". you have three months to fail even more."
Claire Khaw
Save the Palestinians from Akkas!
Leon Georgiou
I do enjoy Akkas's rants against you though.
Claire Khaw
So do I!
Leon Georgiou
He appears to be very politically confused though. At times a conservative Muslim, at others a radical leftist student.
Claire Khaw
I think it depends on his time of the month.
Claire Khaw
Yes, there are a few people I know whose moods seem to be affected by the waxing and waning of the moon ...
________________________________________________________
This is not just a thumbs down to Akkas and the indescribably tedious plays he seems to be "curating" as well as his incorrigible bitchiness, but a thumbs up to The Promise by Ben Brown performed at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, which should have had a long run at the National if there is any justice in the world.
The outfit he is attached to - Sandpit Arts - is of course supported by public funding by the Arts Council of England.
I never got round to answering Dave Wells' question as to whom the intended audience of such a play would be for. I cannot imagine any ordinary person - Muslim or not - would want to pay good money to see this. If I were Palestinian I would be acutely embarrassed. I think it is not for the benefit of any audience at all, but for the benefit of the performers, directors and pet Muslims of the government of whom Akkas is one.
Such a shame really. I did go to one of his plays and it was really not bad at all. It was even reviewed at http://thevoiceofreason-ann.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/tryst-with-destiny-by-akkas-al-ali.html
I even did the research and gave him the plot summary of a play that he could write to make his name, but he rejected it out of hand because it was not his own idea.
Pride is a deadly sin, I cannot help but think.
It was basically this: Henry VIII, instead of begging the Pope to grant him a divorce, converts to Islam and simply takes another wife, Ann, and then another, Jane who eventually gives him a son. Tudor England is peaceful, and no wife of Henry's gets her head chopped off.
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| Would more of his wives have kept their heads if Henry VIII had converted to Islam when the Pope wouldn't grant him a divorce? He could have kept Catherine of Arragon and taken as many as four wives in order to sire a son, or he could have divorced them, instead of beheading them so he would be free to marry another. |
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