East End Review

Author: East End Review

  • The real mothers of invention

    Gavin Weightman
    Gavin Weightman

    Inventions aren’t born fully fledged, nor are they the work of a lone genius. In his latest foray into the past, Hackney-based historian and former journalist Gavin Weightman explores the nuances and collaboration that lead inevitably to the all-important ‘eureka!’ moment in the story of invention.

    From his own school days as an amateur radio maker, Weightman has always been fascinated by how the impossible becomes possible. It is this fascination that is woven throughout Eureka: How Invention Happens, working backwards from the final product to the initial stages of exploration, the first breakthrough and the moment when it all becomes possible. “My book isn’t prescriptive,” he says. “It doesn’t tell you how to be an inventor, but rather takes a closer look at the pre-histories of inventions that involve all sorts of people.”

    Social histories have dominated the genre of late. Weightman’s book may sound industrially focused, yet one of its underlying threads is the impact, even as an afterthought, of great inventions on our society. It’s as much a book about people as it is about products; not just those who dreamed up the things we take for granted today, but those who use them.

    “Obviously inventions influence the human condition to some degree,” says Weightman. “Just look at social media as a result of a combination of the personal computer and the mobile phone, for example – but are we better or worse off because of them? Progress improves people’s lives and makes them easier, but I don’t think it fundamentally alters the balance of good and evil.”

    This is a question that crops up more and more as we live in an increasingly digital world. There’s no doubt that, in this book, these inventions are thought of as a good thing. Weightman doesn’t subscribe to the idea that necessity is the mother of invention, instead presenting an entertaining and compelling snapshot of everyday innovators who went beyond the bounds of possibility.

    “In researching my book, one of the most significant things I discovered is that those who have produced something practical have been largely outside the mainstream of science. It’s not that we don’t need scientists and engineers, it’s just that they don’t seem to think about who might need, or want, the item in question.”

    Weightman’s book emphasises the importance of the amateur in the creation of some of the most ubiquitous technologies that surround us today – the aeroplane, the television, the bar code, the personal computer and the mobile phone. Their very status as unknowns meant they had very little to lose, were able to experiment and test without the pressure of commitment to existing techniques and technologies. By focusing on the everyman behind the eureka moment, Weightman is redefining a historical narrative, taking an original approach to the ingenuity of invention that’s at once scientifically revealing and socially intriguing.

    It’s often a process of elimination, a hobby that turns into something far more serious as the boundaries are pushed. “There’s definitely an element of chance, of stumbling across things when it comes to invention,” says Weightman. “While some of the people I explore in my book, like the Wright brothers, had an idea of who might be interested in their creation, they usually hadn’t thought too far ahead, and just didn’t know how it would go.”

    This pattern emerges throughout this narrative, as time and again industry leaders declared the telephone unlikely to take off in Britain, or dismissed the television as a load of rubbish.

    Often, existing technology is what halts progress and creates resistance. Eureka: How Invention Happens explores how innovators have circumvented what seemed like insurmountable obstacles in their pursuit of the limits of reality. So when it comes to the creation of what still seems unimaginable to us today, like the flying car, what’s stopping us?

    “Sometimes it’s the failure of imagination, and sometimes it’s the resistance of the very industry who you’d think would produce it. Amateurs will give it a go first, before bigger industry moves in; I believe the working robot will be created by someone totally unexpected. Industries should go on perfecting their products, and leave the inventing to amateurs and outsiders.”

    Eureka: How Invention Happens
    is published by Yale University Press.
    ISBN: 9780300192087 RRP: £20.

  • The Misfit Analysis: a play to ‘push autism out of the ghetto’

    Misfit_Analysis_620x535

    Cian Binchy was the autism consultant for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime with the National Theatre. Or, as he puts it, he “taught the actor how to be autistic.”

    Unlike most consultants however, Binchy wasn’t paid. Instead, he received a photo with the cast – a perhaps only slightly less patronising version of a smiley face sticker, a symbol which Binchy’s’s own production, The Misfit Analysis, references to great effect.

    Why, in fact, disabled characters – or indeed any characters – are rarely played by disabled actors is one of the key concerns of Access All Areas – a Hackney-based performance company for adults with learning disabilities.

    I met Access All Areas producer Patrick Collier and Cian Binchy on the rooftop of the Lyric Hammersmith, where they were previewing The Misfit Analysis before its run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

    The production, a collaboration between Binchy and Access All Areas, is an attempt to both educate and challenge perceptions about life with autism. Perceptions like: “you’re autistic therefore you’re like Rainman or Who’s Eating Gilbert Grape?”, Collier adds.

    Along with various performance programmes for adults with learning disabilities, Access All Areas runs a Performance Making Diploma at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

    Binchy is a graduate from this course and sings its praises; The Misfit Analysis was his final project. Other courses at ‘community colleges’, he says, had frequently been demeaning and dull.

    This course, on the other hand, “is not there to hand-hold people… it’s a hard course and it pushes people,” explains Collier. It’s about “showing the ability that is there, not the disability… ,[putting] a learning disabled artistic aesthetic on the UK theatre scene that doesn’t exist otherwise.”

    Binchy believes that the performance industry, while ostensibly “glamorous and sugar-coated”, is in fact a “very, very cruel place” – for anyone; and that people with learning disabilities are even more vulnerable to its harsh vagaries.

    Collier says that Access All Areas aims to level the playing field. They are piloting the idea of a ‘creative enabler’, he says, to provide “bespoke support” for performers with learning disabilities “navigating the very complex funding scene and theatre industry.”

    The Misfit Analysis is testimony to the talent of Cian Binchy and the production skills of Access All Areas. It’s about “understanding people as individuals,” he tells me, “to push autism out of the ghetto.”

    Inspired by Binchy’s experiences of “being dismissed a lot”, “feeling like an outsider, feeling like I don’t fit in… [of] being in a very dark kind of place,” he describes play as a picture of “how my mind works, going through a manifesto, a journey in my mind, not really going anywhere, the kind of balance between fantasy and reality.”

    “What do you hope people will gain from seeing your performance?” I ask. Binchy ponders for a while and responds wryly: “I was going to say that it’s about showing people that there’s nothing to be scared of, but I don’t think the play really shows that – I think it shows pretty much the opposite really!” We laugh. Comedy is a crucial tool in Binchy’s work.

    “I love doing satire and making it seem dead serious,” he tells me, “anything but comfortable; the audience are going to think ‘oh my goodness, what have I got myself in for?’” We laugh again, and Collier and Binchy go off to begin rehearsing.

    ow.ly/QfKZY

  • Beside the Leaside

    Leaside
    Photograph: Sam Napper

    The still, murky waters of the Lee Navigation may provide a bucolic escape for some, though they are far from immune to the vicissitudes of city life.

    Pollution has taken its toll on plants and wildlife, hulking new-builds cast shadows over the banks of the water, while boat dwellers on this 45km-stretch, running from Hertfordshire through East London to Limehouse Basin, are finding permanent moorings increasingly difficult to come by.

    Photographer Sam Napper is trying to make permanent records of life on the Lee Navigation as it is now. His Leaside photography series goes on display this month at Leyas in Camden.

    “It’s a wilderness in London and the other canals are not like that,” says the 29-year-old, a keen explorer of the canals who moved to East London five years ago.

    “As you get further out of London the Lee Navigation becomes more rural, even though it’s still in London, whereas Regent’s Canal and the other ones are very urban spaces.”

    After spending weeks on the towpath taking photographs, Napper developed a rapport with some of the people living on boats.
    “A lot of the people I met were complaining about licences being removed, mooring spaces being privatised… a lot of people were upset but my slant is that it’s a way of life to be celebrated.

    “One guy who moved there with his family has just celebrated his first year on the canal. He said to me that you know you can ‘do a canal’ when you’ve done a full season, because winter is so harsh.”

    Napper’s photographs capture life on the canal in all its variety, from the joggers and plushy marshland to the bankside remains of Britain’s industrial past.

    “It’s a real mix of people in there and I’m not coming from it just from the point of view of people on the canal boats. They’re a big part of the community but it’s just as important for people who want to use it for leisure,” Napper says.

    A film and TV producer by day, Napper describes his photography style as “reportage” and observational.

    “I really like finding a unique subject and trying to make it isolated and symmetrical so it feels like a whole new environment that no one’s ever seen before,” he says.

    Leaside
    Saturday 15 August
    Leyas
    20 Camden High Street
    London
    NW1

  • Asif Kapadia – ‘Something happened with Amy’

    Amy Winehouse. Photograph: Alex Lake
    Amy Winehouse. Photograph: Alex Lake

    Camden, not Hackney, is the place with which the singer Amy Winehouse, who died in 2011 of alcohol poisoning, will always be associated.

    But for Hackney-born director Asif Kapadia, whose acclaimed documentary Amy tells the story of the singer’s precarious life and untimely death, Winehouse could have been “a girl from down the road”.

    Unlike other films directed by Kapadia, such as the award-winning documentary Senna, Amy is a London film. And like many fellow Londoners, Kapadia was moved by the singer’s life.

    “Something happened with Amy Winehouse,” says Kapadia, explaining why he decided to make the film. “I wanted to know how that happened in front of our eyes. How can someone die like that in this day and age?

    “For me, she was like a girl from down the road. I grew up in the same part of the world. She could have been someone I knew, someone I was friends with or might have gone to school with. I thought we should investigate.”

    Kapadia was born in 1972, the youngest of five children. He went to Homerton House school (now the site of City Academy) and began his film career as a runner on student films.

    After undertaking an HND at Newport Film School, Kapadia studied film-making at the University of Westminster before completing a Masters in film and TV direction at the Royal College of Art.

    Amy has already broken box office records, and looks set to challenge Senna, Kapadia’s documentary about Brazilian racing driver Ayrton Senna, as the highest grossing British documentary of all time.

    Like Amy Winehouse, Ayrton Senna was an icon who died in tragic circumstances. But researching the story and carrying out interviews for Senna proved a more straightforward process.

    “With Senna there were a lot of books and a lot of people knew the story. With Amy it became apparent that no one knew the story, or that people were not willing to tell it.”

    Many of Winehouse’s closest friends apparently took a ‘vow of silence’ after her funeral, so to complete the 100 plus interviews that make up the film’s narrative, the production team needed to win over their trust, a process that took almost a year.

    “It was all quite recent and painful for a lot of people and there was a lot of guilt and a lot of baggage,” adds producer James Gay-Rees.

    “The whole experience took an awful lot out of all these people, understandably.

    It is hard to imagine what it must be like to see your closest childhood or teenage friend going through the perils of celebrity and mega-fame, knowing that there were underlying issues that would come to the fore.”

    Kapadia made the songs and lyrics of Amy Winehouse central to the film. “Once you understand her life and you read the lyrics, they run much deeper than you might have thought,” he says.

    “I thought all we have to do is unravel what these lyrics are about. That for me became the big revelation. This is a film about Amy and her writing.”

    Amy is on general release in cinemas now.

  • Play exploring radicalisation of young Muslims axed two weeks before opening

    Photograph: Helen Maybanks
    Photograph: Helen Maybanks

    A National Youth Theatre (NYT) play exploring the radicalisation of young Muslims and the lure of Islamic State scheduled to open in two weeks has been cancelled, leaving its cast claiming voices have been “silenced”.

    Homegrown, which aimed to explore the “stories and communities behind the headlines and the perceptions and realities of Islam and Muslim communities in Britain” was set to open at UCL academy in north London on 12 August.

    But the cast of 112 young actors and creative team were “shocked” when the NYT announced that the play would not go ahead.

    An NYT statement said: “After some consideration, we have come to the conclusion that we cannot be sufficiently sure of meeting all of our aims to the standards we set and which our members and audiences have come to expect.”

    Homegrown’s Director Nadia Latif and playwright Omar El-Khairy said the NYT’s statement contained “factual inaccuracies”.

    The pair insist the play was ahead of schedule, any concerns on content were “raised and discussed” and that the idea for the commission came from NYT’s artistic director.

    In a joint statement Latif and El-Khairy said: “The creative team and our cast of 112 young people were two weeks into our rehearsals, the culmination of six month process.

    “As well as the factual inaccuracies of NYT’s statement, we feel that, six days on from being told over email that show was pulled, it is bewildering that there are still unresolved questions regarding the cancellation of the show  two weeks before our scheduled opening. We feel that the reasons of this production being pulled down have not been transparent, openly addressed and fully answered.”

    The young cast took to social media to express their disappointment over the decision. Qasim Mahmood tweeted:

    The NYT confirmed that all purchased tickets for Homegrown would be fully refunded.

  • Homegrown – young, gifted and radicalised

    Photograph: Helen Maybanks
    Photograph: Helen Maybanks

    When three teenage girls from Bethnal Green ran away to join Isis earlier this year, the shocking news was splashed over all the front pages.

    CCTV pictures showed the girls, pupils at Bethnal Green Academy who were studying for their GCSEs, calming passing through security at Gatwick airport, leaving behind distraught families and friends.

    Now a new play called Homegrown, in part inspired by the story of the Bethnal Green teenagers, is setting out to tackle the subject of radicalisation among young Muslims and the lure of Isis.

    The site-specific piece will be set inside a school, The UCL Academy over in West London, and promises to be a spectacle, with a cast made up of 115 members of the National Youth Theatre.

    Director Nadia Latif and writer Omar El-Khairy wanted the production to be steeped in the views of a wide range of people, so part of the show uses verbatim interviews with East London residents.

    “We talked with everyone from local vicars, to shopkeepers to people in the park, and just asked them what the story meant to them,” says Latif.

    “We interviewed a couple that lived opposite Bethnal Green Academy, and they had one set of views on it. But there was a breadth of responses. It’s not dramatising the story but using it to ask what it takes to give up your life and leave like that.”

    What with Alecky Blythe’s Little Revolution and Jonathan Maitland’s An Audience with Jimmy Savile, there seems to be a real appetite in East London for verbatim theatre that offers a dramatic take on real life events.

    But the story of the teenagers from Bethnal Green Academy is arguably more sensitive, in that there are families to consider – and we still don’t really know what has happened to the girls. I ask how, if at all, this affected the play.

    “I’m not interested in ambulance chasing at all and we’re not trying to be sensationalist,” Latif responds. “This is something that’s been happening for a really long time, and we had the idea for the show before that had even happened.

    “But it gave us a point of reference to talk to audiences with. We wouldn’t have had the idea to go into the Bethnal Green community and talk to people otherwise, so it’s been a really good galvanising point and frame of reference.”

    But the main reason why that particular story captured the public imagination and remains intriguing is that the motivation behind the girls’ actions is so difficult to grasp. What answers does the play give?

    “I don’t think it’s a theatre maker’s job to have an answer,” Latif says. “I personally have an opinion, but I think any piece of theatre that has an answer is not only probably wrong, but is also unlikely to be a very good piece of theatre.

    “Theatre’s job is to tell a story and ask an audience questions, hoping they might leave and discuss that, and maybe we’ll show them a new way of looking at it. But it definitely doesn’t come to a conclusion and there’s no authentic conclusion to be had anyway.”

    Latif has worked on site-specific pieces before such, as Rupert Gould’s play about 9/11, Decade, and has experience with large-scale works.

    Homegrown, however, is the most ambitious production Latif has been involved with to date. But when I ask her how the production intends to use a school as its setting, she remains tight-lipped.

    “I think people will have to take a chance and be brave and know that they’re going to see some stuff that they’ve never seen before, but the rest is a mystery.”

    Homegrown
    12–29 August
    The UCL Academy
    Adelaide Road
    NW3 3AQ

    | image by helen maybanks

  • Opening of ‘misleading’ Jack the Ripper museum sparks outrage

    'Dissapointing': Mayor of Tower Hamlets John Biggs says he will be boycotting the exhibition
    ‘Disappointing’: Mayor of Tower Hamlets John Biggs says he will be boycotting the exhibition

    Protest groups are to picket the opening night of a controversial museum in Tower Hamlets this evening.

    The Cable Street attraction sparked outrage when it was revealed it would not be a celebration of historical women of the East End as promised, but a show focusing on the notorious East End murderer and rapist Jack the Ripper.

    The museum’s website states the show looks at the history of women in the East End in the Victorian era and explores “why so many women had little choice in their lives other that to turn to prostitution.”

    Critics say the show glorifies violence against women and silences the voices of the Ripper’s victims.

    Tower Hamlets Council’s suggestion that they were ‘misled’ by the original planning application has provoked a tidal wave of anger in the local area.

    The Mayor of Tower Hamlets John Biggs has announced he will be boycotting the museum and a protest has been planned ahead of the opening.

    Groups such as the National Assembly of Women, the Women’s Assembly Against Austerity and the Emily Wilding Davison Memorial Campaign plan to protest outside the museum dressed as suffragettes.

    A petition calling on Tower Hamlets to revoke the museum’s planning permission, or force it to re-open as a women’s museum as originally promised has gathered over 3,000 signatures.

    ‘Victim-blaming’

    Becky Warnock, who started the petition, said that when she read about the museum “something clicked into action.” She told the East End Review: “I felt anger at the deceit involved, of the silencing of women’s voices in favour of a well trodden celebration of a famous murderer.”

    “How can we expect to stop the violent crimes against women in today’s society if we continue to celebrate their killers and only remember women as victims? Let’s celebrate all the incredible women that have paved the path before for all of us!”

    Warnock said accused the museum of being a cultural organisation that “glorifies the horrific violence the women were subjected to.”

    “This victim blaming attitude is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated,” she added.

    Tower Hamlets’ Mayor Biggs described the decision to open a Jack the Ripper museum instead of one celebrating the history of women in the borough as “extremely disappointing”.

    “It has become clear that the council’s planning department was misled by the applicant. We completely understand the concerns of the local community and elsewhere,” he said.

    The Jack the Ripper museum, founded by former Head of Diversity at Google Mark Palmer Edgecumbe, has not responded to the East End Review’s request for comment.

    The telephone number on the museum’s website connects to the office of a stockbrokers in the city.

  • Going large on macro management

    Nicky Clinch
    ‘Macro’ manager Nicky Clinch with Teia

    Food described as ‘macrobiotic’ may sound, to the untrained ear, like something cooked up in the science lab.

    But the origins of macrobiotics lie in traditional Chinese medicine, and can be traced back thousands of years.

    The idea behind macrobiotics is that what one eats directly correlates to health, well-being and happiness.

    Nicky Clinch is a Hackney-based chef, teacher and counsellor who is out to spread the word of macrobiotics to anyone who will listen.

    “Macrobiotics was at one time very scientific and was specifically for healing illnesses,” she says. “But now there’s a new generation, which is trying to change it and bring it into the mainstream.”

    Clinch has worked as a ‘natural foods chef’ (“it sounds a little bit more recognisable than macrobiotic chef,” she explains), for Tiosk on Broadway Market, and runs courses in macrobiotics at the Made In Hackney food kitchen.

    Macrobiotic diets, Clinch tells me, are plant-based, and use only seasonal, locally-sourced and organic produce. For her, that consists of whole grains, sea vegetables and vegetarian proteins – with no refined sugars or dairy allowed.

    “I find that cooking and eating this way is optimal for us not just physically but emotionally and mentally, and it also allows us to stay in tune with the environment we are living in,” Clinch says.

    Whilst studying for three years at the International School of Macrobiotics in Devon, Clinch learnt about what she calls the different ‘energetics’ of both food and everything else around us, including emotions, body, jobs, lifestyles, the seasons and illnesses.

    For the uninitiated, the main theory at play is that everything in the world is made up of energy that can be divided into two opposing camps. Yin is expansive energy, while yang is contracting. Together they create balance, which in macrobiotics is the key to health and well-being. Too much of one can spell trouble, either mentally or physically.

    Clinch describes herself as a cross between a traditional Chinese doctor and a therapist. Her approach she claims works wonders with a range of problems, from unwanted cravings and digestive health to emotional problems.

    “If you’re craving something sweet then it could be because you’re eating a lot of salty foods that makes you crave the opposite,” Clinch says.

    “For example, I have one client who has very strong sweet cravings. That tells me that she needs some kind of inside transformation related to slowing down, taking care of yourself or self-nurturing. That’s the emotional aspect to it.”

    Clinch was born in Hong Kong but went to school in the UK. Growing up she had a difficult relationship with food and developed eating disorders. Then, aged 20, she saw a therapist.

    “I started to understand that it wasn’t really about the food. It was about what was underneath it all. I was using food to cover things up, to cope with situations. It was my way of trying to have some sense of control when I felt out of control. And so it’s become a real passion for me to really help others in this specific area as well.”

    Macrobiotics is a lifestyle for Clinch, though one that is not rigid nor necessarily very scientific.

    “For me it’s about finding balance and listening to your bodies,” she says. “I tell my students there are no gurus, that you should start listening to your own bodies rather than what you think is right or wrong.”

    Nicky Clinch is holding a Supper Club on 11 August, 1 Westgate Street, E8 3RL. For details see nickyclinch.com

  • Great Ex-pectations at Oslo

    The Ex: performing at Oslo on 19 August
    The Ex: performing at Oslo on 19 August

    There aren’t too many acts out there that can say they brought punk to Ethiopia. That is, however, one of the more colourful entries in Dutch group The Ex’s pretty darn colourful CV.

    But just because you bring it, doesn’t mean anyone actually wants it. “No one had ever heard of punk; they’d heard of hip hop and jazz, but none of them knew our type of music,” recalls guitarist Andy Moor, originally of these shores. “They found it quite amusing – there was a lot of laughing.”

    In the interests of balance, it is worth pointing out that punk is something of a misnomer. Sure, The Ex started out in 1979 (of course), fitting in nicely with the likes of Gang of Four, The Slits and Birthday Party.

    But when Moor joined in early 1990s, bringing with him a love of African and Eastern European music, the band were set on a more experimental course. Moor identifies meeting and collaborating with American cellist Tom Cora as a real turning point, and soon The Ex found themselves invited to play at jazz festivals.

    “The Ex grew out of the punk scene, but mutated into its own thing. It’s hard to define, but we don’t have to!” (Attempts by others range from anarcho-punk to ethno-punk to jazz punk.)

    Many collaborations have followed, some with popular acts – the likes of Sonic Youth and Tortoise – others with less well-known jazz artists (depending on who you ask) such as Han Bennink or current collaborator, saxophonist Ken Vandermark.

    It is these collaborations, Moor explains, in combination with the band’s own (untrained) spontaneity that drives their musical direction. “We don’t want to have a jam with every musician in the world; we’ll just hear a sound that appeals to us. They don’t even have to be great players.”

    His favourite joint project is the work the band did with legendary Ethiopian saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya. “It was his idea – he saw us playing after we’d invited him to Amsterdam to play with the Instant Composers’ Pool (ICP). He came to us after, and said, ‘I want The Ex to be my band.’ We started rehearsing with him – none of us could speak Amharic, he couldn’t speak English, so we just communicated with hand signals, music, smiling, laughing. Somehow it worked – we were playing his pieces, songs he’s been playing for 40 years. That was my favourite maybe because it was so unlikely.”

    One of the reasons The Ex can enjoy such musical freedom is their refusal to get involved with the trappings of the music industry – they have never had anything to do with a label or any type of management (now that’s pretty punk).

    “I think the music industry has nothing to do with music. There’s great music that comes out of it, but the shit you have to deal with … we decided we’ll do it ourselves.”

    It’s a fairly gruelling approach, Moor admits, which means they have to tour to live, and one which also means, he admits, they aren’t as well known as they might be (except, apparently, in France).

    This might be read also as a political gesture as well as an artistic one – and indeed, the guitarist happily admits The Ex are a political band: “You sing about love, you sing about football, or you sing about your beliefs – we get frustrated, we see lot of shit happening around us – we manage to release a lot of that anger, but there’s also positive energy too. Ultimately, it’s a celebration of music – we want to make music we’ve never heard before, and music that we love. It’s simple.”

    The Ex perform at Oslo, Hackney Central on 19 August 2015

  • Crossing Jerusalem – a conflict of interest

    Chris Spyrides in Crossing Jerusalem at Park Theatre
    Chris Spyrides in Crossing Jerusalem at Park Theatre

    Jerusalem is a city on the edge. One of the oldest urban civilisations in the world, and a holy site for three major religions, it has in recent times become characterised by conflict.

    Control of the city is one of the central issues in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which remains not just a dispute over territory, but one of identity.

    Set against this backdrop is Julia Pascal’s 2003 play, Crossing Jerusalem, which is being remounted this month at the Park Theatre.

    Directed by the writer herself, the play takes place over a 24-hour period, capitalising on the ephemeral atmosphere in the city.

    “There is a sort of low-level anxiety in Israel constantly,” she says. “Love, sex and death are raw and present there all the time.”

    Pascal is an atheist, attending a non-religious state school in Manchester and ‘marrying out’ of Jewish society. But she still considers herself Jewish in a cultural sense.

    She wrote the Crossing Jerusalem following the Second Intifada, the Palestinian revolt against Israel that lasted from 2000 to 2005.

    Her research saw Pascal masking her Jewish identity and venturing into the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem, speaking French as a decoy to find out the truth of what life was like there.

    “Being a writer is like being a spy,” says Pascal. “As a ‘French person’ I was told things I never would have heard a as Jew.”

    This is where she discovered details of the relationships depicted in the piece.

    These include a Jewish woman’s love for her Arab servant, acts of horrific violence perpetrated by both sides, and unusual culture clashes such as the Christian Arab who will host anyone at his restaurant as long as they can afford to eat.

    It is these apparent inconsistencies and contradictions that Pascal always seeks to draw attention to in her writing. She tells me that the only Jewish plays in London are anti-Zionist and that the nature of the conflict in the Middle East is over-simplified, supporting an “easy political dogma”.

    Her considerable body of work declares a fearless appetite to challenge these received opinions and an eagerness to expose the complex and uncomfortable truth.

    And this play is no different. It is an insight into a strained and complex world of family ties, prejudice, religious obligation and above all humanity.

    As Pascal says: “The more we know about each other, the safer the world is.”

    Crossing Jerusalem
    4–29 August
    Park Theatre
    Clifton Terrace
    N4 3JP
    parktheatre.co.uk