r/JewsOfConscience • u/Educational_Board888 Non-Jewish Ally • 9d ago
Activism Leading artists condemn campaign against ‘Let it be a Tale’ theatre production
https://artistsforpalestine.org.uk/category/all/Leading artists, including writer Michael Rosen, actors Billy Howle and Khalid Abdalla, playwrights Caryl Churchill and Tanika Gupta and composer Orlando Gough, have spoken out against attempts to damage the reputation and stifle the work of Brighton’s ThirdSpace theatre company.
ThirdSpace works with young people. Its latest show, Let it be a Tale, is scheduled for performance in venues across the city before Christmas.
‘We all carry our stories with us and pass them down,’ reads the company’s description of the show. ‘When someone dies, we keep their memory alive through stories. When cultures are under threat, we keep them alive through stories.’ The advocacy group ‘UK Lawyers for Israel’ (UKLFI) has launched a campaign that claims that the work of ThirdSpace has ‘antisemitic and pro-terror overtones’ and calls for ThirdSpace to be ‘investigated’.
Artists including actors Juliet Stevenson and Harriet Walter, directors David Lan and Ian Rickson and writers Sabrina Mahfouz and Inua Ellams, describe UKLFI’s action as ‘an attempt to shut down conversation on crucial questions of justice, war and human rights’. They say they are ‘appalled that the empathy expressed in the work of ThirdSpace is being presented as a form of antisemitism’.
UKLFI has targeted renowned surgeon Ghassan Abu Sitta and International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Karim Khan. It has attempted to dismiss the opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Israel’s actions in Gaza amount to plausible genocide. In response, hundreds of former judges, including three of the Supreme Court, as well as sitting judges, lawyers and legal academics have rebutted UKLFI’s claims, noting their arguments to be “empty wordplay on the most serious of issues”. It has a record of attempting to censor cultural expression: children’s art at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, an exhibition at the Whitworth gallery in Manchester and a show at the Barbican.
Its efforts to deny expressions of Palestinian identity and experience is deeply damaging to the cultural sector, to public life, and for the development of children and young people.
The artists say they fully endorse ThirdSpace Theatre’s efforts to ‘build community and resistance in hard times’. They go on to ‘urge arts funders and Brighton and Hove Council to affirm their continuing support for the company and to resist any attempt to curtail or cancel its work’.
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