Al-Zaytouna Nottingham Dabke Group

The group performed tonight, the following is a description of the play:

"A celebrated, maverick playwright gets an unexpected call in the middle of the night, from a very old friend with an unusual request…

Two cousins bump into each other after an eternity apart… in the strangest of circumstances and the most surreal of settings.

Four Palestinian students are about to meet in a London Café to discuss putting up a show about Palestine… They share a love for their ancestral land… and almost nothing else… with very interesting consequences.

A theatre producer has 8 weeks to stage a play about Palestine but is struggling to find someone brave and visionary enough to write the script…

Idealism, anger, love, hate, cynicism, despair, hope, loss, nostalgia and resilience… Palestine meets Palestine in this Play within a Play.

The results are unpredictable, powerful and life-changing for all concerned".

I'm not really a theatre critic or a person that regularly goes to theatres, in fact this is probably the third time I've been to a play, but the description above does sound better than the play itself. True all of the above was in the play but I didn't think they spent enough time developing the story. However the Dabke and the music were awesome!! Very entertaining, especially the checkpoint scene. But I guess its more of a music concert than a play, but it was really worth it, a must see for anyone who wants to see Palestinian folklore dance and music.

One comment about the content of the play. There is a part where one of the girls in the cafe was talking about the need to make the Palestinian cause a 'universal' cause. Two things I have to say about that, 1) The Palestinian cause is an Arab cause and not a universal cause. There are 300 million Arabs, if those are not able to act and liberate Palestine then there is something really really wrong with the Arab people, because we have already been given 60 years time to do so. The only time the Palestinian cause becomes a 'universal' one is when it becomes the muslims cause. 2) Nevertheless I understand the need to make the Palestinian cause a universal cause, simply because we have given up hope that the Arabs are capable of doing anything.

P.S: if your one of the guys who was performing in the play and fell while doing the dabke I just want to tell you tough luck man, it really was terrible. :D nah just kidding..