Category — Entertainment

Norman White

“So, do you work for Biddles full time?” I asked the chap with the bottle of wine in his hand.

“Actually I own the company,” he replied, and smiled.

Covered in confusion, I said, “That’s a conversation stopper.” But, of course, it wasn’t. And the boat kept on sailing down river.

Erica and I were guests at Norman White’s retirement party on a Salters boat on the Thames yesterday evening. Norman is a long-standing and excellent rep for Biddles, one of the UK’s leading book manufacturers, and George Ronald Publisher Ltd was one of his accounts for many years.

Norman is “old school” in all the right ways: dedicated to service, with many years of hands-on experience in different aspects of print and publishing, warm-hearted and very helpful.

Even though it was Erica who was dealing with Norman, I always used to look forward to his visits to our home in Abingdon, which doubled as George Ronald’s office until we moved to Welwyn. A cup of coffee, some banter, and discussion about developments in print and publishing lightened the day.

And Norman was also very fond of Emma (our late-lamented Border Collie), as she was of him.

So last evening we floated down the Thames from Folly Bridge in Oxford as far as the Radley School boat houses to the sound of a trad jazz band (with a Sousaphone) to celebrate Norman’s years with Biddles.

It was a lovely evening - and there was a great spirit amongst the Biddles current and former staff.

Technorati Tags: Biddles, Thames, Salters, retirement

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Iranians, said Omid Djalili, as he opened the first episode of his new TV show on BBC One, just don’t get British humour:

For you, an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman is a joke. For us, it’s a hostage situation.

Or the Middle Eastern equivalent of the “knock knock” joke: the “floomph floomph” joke. “Floomph floomph”? It’s the sound of someone “knocking” on a tent. No? You’d have to hear Omid tell the joke.

Omid always makes me laugh, even when he recycles some of his favourite gags. Like the one about the middle easterner who wants to show his girlfriend how passionate he is about her. He cuts his wrist and writes a poem for her in his own blood and then forces her to take it.

The show’s format has Omid performing stand-up in front of an enthusiastic live audience; sketches and longer pieces are shown in video inserts. There was a lot of good stuff on the show. My favourite was the sketch about his ethnic bit parts in films and on TV. This is done like one of those serious retrospective arts shows about recently deceased actors, completely deadpan, and showing extracts from various thing Omid’s appeared in as the “general purpose Arab scumbag”.

There was a nicely observed take-off of the Ray Mears-type survival programme. But the jewel in this particular crown was the sketch in which Omid, playing a camp Scottish film director newly out of film school, directs Osama bin Laden in his latest video.

James Rampton interviewed Omid in the Daily Telegraph a few days ago:

Welcome to The Omid Djalili Show, a mixture of sketches and stand-up, and a brave piece of commissioning by the BBC. When it starts on BBC1 tonight, its eponymous star will become the first British-Iranian performer ever to get his own mainstream TV show anywhere in the world.

A brave piece of commissioning by the BBC? Rampton quotes Omid:

“I know I tick a lot of boxes for BBC1,” he says. “I’m aware that it’s very rare to have my voice on a mainstream channel, so I want to make the most of it. Why not give people a different perspective on the Middle East?

“In a way, it’s a political statement just to be a funny person from Iran because people’s expectations in this country are so low. But you can’t be too earnest about it. In the show, I say, ‘All I’ve ever wanted to do is bring world peace through my stand-up’ - at which point, the audience bursts into applause - ’so now that I’ve done that, I’m happy to do other things!’”

Baha’is who watched Omid’s show on BBC 1 may have been as anxious as Steve McClaren watching Israel giving England the ghost of a hope of qualifying for Euro 2008 by beating Russia. Omid’s “our lad on prime-time TV” and there are those amongst us who don’t wholly approve of Omid’s comedy. It’s not quite “Baha’i” enough; it’s “political”; it doesn’t give “the Baha’i message”; it’s too darned rude!

Well, I’ve always taken the view that it’s Omid’s business what he puts into his routines. He may not conform to what some people imagine the “ideal” Baha’i to be, but he knows what makes him tick. It’s not for the Baha’i community to “censor” him either overtly or by covert social pressure.

Of course, I understand the anxiety. Omid is a high profile member of a very small religious minority in the UK. We hope he will choose whatever we think Baha’i moral standards to be, and we want him to make us look good.

But not only does he deal well with sensitive subjects in his comedy, he is also opening doors for Baha’is. Before Omid came to prominence, there can have been very few young Baha’is who would have considered stand-up comedy as a possible choice of profession. There’s a standing joke amongst Baha’is that all Iranian parents in their hearts really want their offspring to be doctors or engineers, or possibly architects. (Yes, I know, you’ve seen that joke applied to people from the Indian Sub-Continent in Goodness Gracious Me. And, yes, I know it’s a stereotype, but there is often some truth in some stereotypes.)

Actually, despite this desire for respectability, there’s a strong tradition of Iranian Baha’is in the arts - and that goes back to the early days of our faith. But stand-up as the new rock’n'roll is very much a late 20th century/early 21st century phenomenon - and Omid pioneered a route into this profession for Baha’is, a route along which one or two other young Baha’is (such as Inder Manocha) are travelling.

I’m looking forward to the next episode of Omid’s show.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Omid Djalili, comedy, stand-up, BBC

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[Photo: Ronnie Youssefzadeh]

Actor Earl Cameron is a remarkable man.

Not the least of the remarkable things about the man is that he is 90 and still castable in films. He’s recently appeared in The Interpreter and The Queen. He has an extraordinary screen presence, and yet when you meet him in the flesh, he’s a warm, balanced, loving and genuinely humble individual. Here’s what Screenonline has to say:

From the moment he first appeared on screen, as a young Jamaican in Ealing Studios’ underrated Pool of London (d. Basil Dearden, 1951), Earl Cameron brought a breath of fresh air to the British film industry’s stuffy depictions of race relations. Often cast as a sensitive outsider, Cameron gave his characters a grace and moral authority that often surpassed the films’ compromised liberal agendas.

He pioneered the way for other black actors to take roles that respected them as people rather than depicting their characters as racial stereotypes. But he also pioneered in another way. As a Baha’i he was moved to abandon show business and to “pioneer” (to use the Baha’i term) to the Solomon Islands to help support the development of the Baha’i community there. He and his family spent 15 years there. During this time of pioneering his wife, Audrey, passed away and he returned to Britain to rebuild his life here. He resumed his acting career in the 1990s.

I had the great privilege of taking part in a reception at the UK National Baha’i Centre in London last night to honour Earl. This was quite an event, attended by five senior people from Transport for London including their Head of Policy and Strategy, the Chair of the Faith Staff Network Group, the Chair of the Black and Ethnic Minority Group and the Marketing Communications Manager of London Underground (who has recently declared her faith as a Baha’i). We had the US Deputy Cultural Attache and his wife, the Head of Diversity and Diversity officer from the UK Film Council, numerous actor and movie industry colleagues of Earl’s, and others including his family.

The highlight of the evening was a 12-minute film tribute to Earl, including clips from some of his movies (The Messenger, Thunderball, The Interpreter, and The Queen) intercut with a moving tribute to Earl from his good friend Sidney Poitier. Marcia Williams, Diversity Officer from the UK Film Council introduced a wonderful new photo portrait of Earl that will soon be on display publicly.

Earl stood to speak, seemingly bemused by the attention that was being paid to him. He spoke briefly about how he came to the UK from his native Bermuda and how he got into acting. He talked of his faith as a Baha’i and explained why he and his family had gone to the Solomon Islands. As he remembered the passing of his first wife, Audrey, he was moved to tears. Later, his present wife, Barbara, comforted him.

Earl, who became a Baha’i in London in 1963, has always placed his faith above his acting career. His faith is what makes him what he is, someone who promotes interracial unity and harmony, whose life is based on his belief in the oneness of God and the oneness of humankind. I’ve known Earl for years - as a Baha’i. We young Baha’is of the 1960s knew, of course, that he was an actor, but for us he was part of our community. Last night I saw him in a different light, as a distinguished and pioneering actor being honoured by friends and colleagues. But, for all the honours, he remains primarily a family man with a big heart, strong faith and a generous spirit.

You can read more about Earl here and here.

Confession time: I took some pics of the event last night on my mobile phone, but failed to store them properly. So no pics. Sorry!

Technorati Tags: Earl Cameron, Bermuda, London, black actors, film, Baha’i, Bahai

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Two British comedians who happen to be Baha’is (or, if you are a Baha’i: two British Baha’is who happen to be comedians) are becoming ever more visible in the media.

Omid Djalili was one of a number of people (including ex-Sex Pistol John Lydon) who gave their views on The Meaning of Life recently on BBC1 TV. I particularly loved his description of himself in the church choir, imagining himself to be tall and handsome, but in reality being fat and sweaty. In the last of this three-part series he gave a wonderfully simple and accurate description of the Baha’i belief about the nature of God.

Omid has clearly made it, since he has an entry all to himself on Wikipedia and he’s been commissioned to do new a one-man series on BBC1. This is a quote from Omid’s website:

After a successful pilot, Omid has been commissioned to do a six-part stand-up series for BBC1 (UK),

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Omid Djalili’s face is everywhere in London right now. Our famous Baha’i stand-up comedian and actor has a major tour on at the moment, and tour posters are all over London.

Omid Djalili’s tour poster almost opposite Harrods on London’s Brompton Road.

Technorati Tags: Omid Djalili, Baha’i, stand-up, comedian, Harrods

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