The Freedom Theatre has the honour of welcoming Mark Thomas, British comedian, presenter, political satirist and journalist, and Sam Beale, senior lecturer in Theatre Arts at Middlesex University, London, who has developed the university’s Solo Performance programme and taught stand-up comedy for over 20 years. Beale and Thomas will give an intensive comedy workshop at The Freedom Theatre, with the aim of establishing the first comedy club in Palestine.
Starting January 21, graduates of The Freedom Theatre School and other artists mainly from the theatre, will be introduced to the key elements of stand-up comedy and given the opportunity to begin exploring their individual comic voices. A combination of group and individual performance exercises and practical explorations will encourage the participants to develop their comic personas and explore a range of performance attitudes as well as beginning to create and write their own stand-up comedy material.
“We will start with ourselves and expand further from there”, explains Nabil Al-Raee from The Freedom Theatre. “We hope to establish a comedy club and be able to offer frequent socio-political stand-up comedy in Jenin.”
Mark Thomas is a long-time friend of The Freedom Theatre and in conversations during the theatre’s 2015 UK tour of The Siege, the idea of a collaboration was born and further developed during Mark Thomas’ visit to The Freedom Theatre in 2016.
In April, Mark Thomas and his team will return to work with the same participants towards a public presentation. Thomas also intends to take some of the new stand-up artists on tour with him in the UK and possibly elsewhere.