Claire Khaw disabled from posting on Facebook for 30 days because Akkas Al Ali reported his own insulting comments to her

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.

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.

Tryst (With Destiny) by Akkas Al-Ali

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tryst_with_destiny

Jeffrey Marshall's review:

Two superb actors, three sets of characters, I think, although one (played by Marlon G.Day) existed in two incarnations, before and after he was touched by madness.

The satirical short story which originally inspired this play involved an exchange of lunatics between recently partitioned states, India & Pakistan.

But the aspect of this play I found most touching was that we were shown the process by which a Hindu man, losing his new Muslim wife in a terrible act of ethnic violence, is driven mad.

The writing was tender, subtle & clever.

It wasn't a short play at an hour and a half, including interval, but it seemed to last no time at all.

Only the staging, where the Muslim bride dies, lacked the necessary force.

Perhaps Sonia Kaur should have retreated offstage and allowed us to imagine the violence of this scene using only sound effects.

My review:

It wasn't weird and boring at all (as I feared it might have been) and there were no longeurs. The dialogue was natural and didn't feel "written".

Marlon Day was charismatic and undeniably fanciable, with his gym-sculpted body of ebony, so making him change on stage was an excellent idea. He played the madman with effortless authenticity whose girlfriend raped and murdered during Partition. 

It was an excellent idea to have a non-Asian male actor, thus universalising the theme of ethnic violence.

There were also unexpectedly topical references to Koran-burning.  http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68709M20100908

Jeffrey confided in that he was a little nervous of being outed during the progress of the play by the UAF as a BNP member (as has been known to happen).

But he is no longer important enough for that sort of entourage.

Anyway, it was all very civilised, with Akkas shaking our hands and thanking us for coming.

His plan was to deny that he was a member (because he has been suspended), and to out me who is still a member and not important enough (at the moment) to be suspended.

A number of prominent Muslims were there on first night. At any rate we recognised two from the Baitul Futuh in Morden.

The pain of Partition clearly lives on in the memory of Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus who killed each other with such enthusiasm during that painful time, and will probably only fade when a national entity called "Pakindia" or "Indistan" comes into existence.

Jeffrey quite reasonably asked:

'Why couldn't they just have Muslims to the Left and Hindus to the right, without killing each other?'

The dialogue was naturalistic and authentically in the English vernacular. There were no Asian accents except when the Sonia Kaur (who played the female characters) was referring to an oppressive character called Fatimah whose accent she imitated, which was Asian.

I did not meet Erica Miller, the director who directed with such unintrusive economy and who treated me to the sight of Marlon Day undressing in front of me.


All in all an excellent cultural excursion (as Jeffrey described it), the theme of thwarted nationhood and the ethnic violence that could result from such a project a salutary one for everyone of all races.