JR OutLoud: Davina Moss talks to JR about her role in the production they're calling The Merchant in Venice at Venice Ghetto 500

An update from Italy: Davina Moss writes:

"Rehearsals are going well! We’ve gone from table work to staging and it’s important to figure out the geometry of the space. Everyone is very excited with how the project is progressing and we’re making some very cool discoveries in the rehearsal room. In this photograph you see us debating over a line in the trial scene, which different versions of the play have different wordings for."

As the celebrations to mark the 500th anniversary of the Venice Ghetto continue, excitement mounts over the first ever performances of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice in the Ghetto itself (26-31 July). In the next of a series of interviews with members of the cast and creative team, JR's arts editor Judi Herman talks to Londoner Davina Moss, currently studying dramaturgy at university in New York, to find out more about her role as assistant dramaturg on this unique production.

Visit www.themerchantinvenice.org for more info.

Interview: Playwright Simon Bent and actor Elliot Levey talk life in Manchester and bringing Howard Jacobson’s comic novel The Mighty Walzer to the stage

“It became a very exotic place for me.” Simon Bent is talking about the Manchester of the 1950s, the setting of Howard Jacobson’s mighty tale of table tennis, teenage angst and Jewish family life. “What attracted me to the book is that it’s about a particular culture at a particular time which is gone. Part of the book is about the loss of that Manchester. It was Howard’s attempt to ‘get down’ that world before it got lost.”

So how has the playwright approached the equally mighty task of bringing Jacobson’s erstwhile Manchester to the stage?

In the novel, the eponymous Oliver Walzer looks back on his teenage days growing up in houseful of aunties, run by his complicated mother and dominated noisily by his larger-than-life father, a salesman of ‘swag’, chachkas (Yiddish for cheap trinkets), and anything he can sell off the back of his van. Bright and bookish Oliver’s great escape is table tennis, a game where he can become first among equals: that is, other nerdy teenage Jewish boys equally obsessed with their indoor sport – and sexual yearnings.

“The clear through line is Ollie, sometime in the future, remembering his past – the pull between the grandiose ambitions of his father and the more reserved character of his mother. The grip of his family is something he struggles to escape from. The story is about his awakening through ping pong and adolescence through to leaving home.”

Leeds-born actor Elliot Levey says he found his alter ego in Ollie when he first read the novel in 1999. “I fell in love, someone had written my life! Rereading it now, significantly older, I realised what I once thought was a coming-of-age story is actually a mid-life crisis story dressed up as a coming-of-age story. It’s about a man who’s spent his life rejecting the world he came from. Then he goes back home and suddenly realises all his life he’s been sitting on a rich seam of joy and love and something he’s always been searching for.”

In the book, narrator Ollie takes readers into his confidence. “Jacobson is such a nimble writer,” says Bent. “He suddenly goes from being light comedic to quite serious. It’s been a challenge to capture that on stage.” So between the slices of action, Bent has Ollie talk to the audience. “He poses a question to his chums in the audience who are our psyche – “Why am I? Where I am?” And he conjures up his mum and dad and people from his past. The thing that cracks it open is the chance of going back, not reliving it as you were, but reliving it as you are.”

Bent and director Jonathan Humphreys are not Jewish. “It means I’m not caught in it. I can look at it from the outside,” says Bent. But Levey is terrified of being too Jewish and turning off an audience. “I don’t want to launder in public. I know Howard has felt that way. So it’s terrific to have two of the prime creative forces in the ring who sense what it’s like when they are being alienated – or more often than not, they are excited and curious by something which most Jews in the room think is commonplace, because we’ve grown up with those sorts of arguments, that sort of language.”

Part of that language is the Yiddish that peppers the novel. “We’ve kept some in and removed other bits. This was a note from Howard actually – he was keen for it not to become stereotypical,” says Bent. “I don’t mind words I don’t know coming up because I get the meaning from the context. But it’s a balancing act. The characters speak with Manchester accents, then constantly speak with Yiddishisms. They slip in and out of them. It’s like the two cultures coming together.”

The almost entirely Jewish cast includes Tracy-Ann Oberman as matriarch Sadie and Jonathan Tafler as dad Joel, and some actors actually from the North West, so those accents should be authentic. “There’s a surfeit of Jews in the cast,” laughs Levey. ”One of the things that makes that joyous, is that you are not the ‘Jew in the room’. Because it’s about a Jewish family, and most of the characters are Jews, it makes you free. It’s about growing up, about mid-life, not about Jews.”

Half the cast of ten play Oliver’s Maccabi teammates, table-tennis nerds to a man, as Levey says, “these utter nerds playing the nerdiest of nerdy sports. The upper echelons of table tennis were Mittel and Eastern European Jews, Hungarians, Czechs. Howard said that in the 1950s, there were not many Jewish sporting heroes and suddenly there were these guys with slicked back hair, baggy trousers, looking great and these nerdy Jewish kids could identify with them.”

So will we see the strokes, hear the sound of bat on ball? The cast is being coached by David Hulme, Stockport Federation’s Head Coach and Levey hints that there might be a game at the end. “We’ve got a table tennis table in the rehearsal room, we’re playing nonstop. We’ve set up a little tournament. There are going to be tables outside the theatre,” he says.

I ask the duo about the lusty adolescent desires depicted in the book: Oliver drools after gorgeous blonde table tennis player Lorna Peachley. Is the play suitable for today’s 13-year-olds?

Levey, who has three sons around that age, is confident it is. “My youngest is 10 and this is perfect for him, partly because it looks at what it was to be a kid at a time perceived to be more innocent. And [it shows] what happens to young boys when sex is repressed… it becomes something that fuels his ping pong.”

Finally what does Jacobson think of it? “When I began the adaptation, I deliberately didn’t meet Howard,” says Bent. I left it till after he’d read the first draft. He had a few suggestions which were good, and I incorporated them. He came to the first day of rehearsal and the read through. He was quite pleased, I think.”

By Judi Herman

The Mighty Walzer runs until Saturday 30 July, 7.30pm & 2.30pm, £8-£16, at Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, M2 7DH. www.royalexchange.co.uk 

The Mighty Walzer Walking Tour runs Sunday 17 - Thursday 28 July, 10.30am, £7, at Manchester Jewish Museum, M8 8LW; 084 3208 0500. www.manchesterjewishmuseum.com

Read our review of The Mighty Walzer and listen to our podcast with table tennis champion Jeff Ingber.

JR OutLoud: In light of Venice Ghetto 500, actor Michelle Uranowitz talks to JR about playing Shylock's daughter as part of the anniversary celebrations

As the celebrations to mark the 500th anniversary of the Venice Ghetto continue, excitement mounts over the first ever performances of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice in the Ghetto itself (26-31 July). JR's arts editor Judi Herman will be talking to various members of the cast and creative team in the coming weeks, but first spoke to American actor Michelle Uranowitz about playing Shylock's rebellious daughter Jessica in Venice.

Visit www.themerchantinvenice.org for more info.

JR OutLoud: A guided tour of the Jewish Museum's exhibition Moses, Mods and Mr Fish

An audio tour of the London Jewish Museum's new exhibition, Moses, Mods and Mr Fish: The Menswear Revolution, charting the emergence of the modern male wardrobe. Join Judi Herman on an exclusive journey guided by curator Elizabeth Selby from the tailoring workshops of the mid-19th century to the boutique revolution and mod culture of the Swinging ‘60s. The exhibition tells the story through the huge number of Jewish companies at the forefront of the major developments and changes in the design, manufacturing and retail of men’s clothing from the mid-19th to late-20th century. Among the highlights are the clothes themselves – including the brown suede jacket worn by John Lennon during the recording of The Beatles' 1963 album, With the Beatles. Judi rounds off her visit by sharing a rather special early ad for Moses and Son Menswear.

Moses, Mods and Mr Fish: The Menswear Revolution runs until 19 June at Jewish Museum, 129-131 Albert St, NW1 7NB; 020 7284 7384. www.jewishmuseum.org.uk

JR OutLoud: Dana Ivgy chats to JR's arts editor Judi Herman about her role in Next to Her

Israeli actress Dana Ivgy chats to JR's arts editor Judi Herman about her role in Asaf Korman's drama Next to Her. This powerful, challenging film – with a script by Korman's wife Liron Ben-Shlush – explores the symbiotic relationship between Chelli (played by Ben-Shlush) and her mentally-challenged sister Gabby (Ivgy), for whom she is the sole carer. One day she is forced to hand Gabby over to a daycare centre part-time, which is when a relationship of another kind develops with Zohar (Yaakov Zada Daniel) the new gym teacher at the school where she works. Ben-Shlush based this story on her own experience of having a mentally disabled sister and worked closely with friend and co-star Dana Ivgy on her role.

Next to Her can be watched on BFI Player for £6 or at the following screenings:

Friday 25 - Wednesday 30 March, times vary, £7.50, at MAC Birmingham, B12 9QH; 0121 446 3232. https://macbirmingham.co.uk

Sunday 20 March, 8pm, £8.50, at Glasgow Film Theatre, G3 6RB; 0141 332 6535. www.glasgowfilm.org/theatre

Read our ★★★★ review of Next to Her

JR OutLoud: Diane Samuels talks about her play Poppy + George and her new oratorio Song of Dina

Liverpudlian playwright Diane Samuels talks to Judi Herman about identity and change from London's East End 1919 to now. These themes feature in her play Poppy + George, about Northerner Poppy Wright, who is taken on at a tailoring workshop by the proprietor Smith, a Russian Jew with a Chinese past. It's here that Poppy also meets Tommy the music hall artist and George the chauffeur, both changed by serving in the trenches.

Diane also discusses her new project (at 21:49), Song of Dina, a multimedia oratorio with music by composer Maurice Chernick, based on the story of the Patriarch Jacob’s only daughter.

Poppy + George runs to Saturday 27 February, 7.30pm & 2.30pm, £12-£22.50, at Watford Palace Theatre, 20 Clarendon Rd, WD17 1JZ; 01923 225671. http://watfordpalacetheatre.co.uk

Song of Dina launch event on Wednesday 6 April, 7.45pm, FREE, at JW3, 341-351 Finchley Rd, NW3 6ET; 020 7433 8989. www.jw3.org.uk

Read JR's four-star review of Poppy + George

Interview: Josh Bradlow from Stonewall shares his story for LGBT History Month

Whilst we're in the midst of LGBT History Month, Josh Bradlow shares his experiences of coming of age as a gay Jewish man, from his 'mortifying' Bar Mitzvah, to his current work as a policy intern at LGBT equality charity Stonewall. 

"Of the many embarrassing moments I had throughout my teenage years, one in particular stands out for me. On a sweltering June afternoon in a crowded Lebanese restaurant, a relative addressed my Bar Mitzvah party. ‘Josh probably wouldn’t want you to know this’, he said, ‘but his favourite film is Miss Congeniality’. The audience erupted in gales of laughter, and I was mortified.

"It might strike some people as confusing as to why I found this so embarrassing. Anyone who knows me these days will know that I carry precisely no shame about my love for Miss Congeniality (and to a lesser extent, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous). But at that moment, hours after I had supposedly ‘become a man’ in the synagogue,  I felt that I’d been exposed as being ‘unmanly’, and back then that felt like a serious problem.

"By that point I’d been trying to ‘pray the gay away’ for two years, and to say that I was unhappy with my sexuality would be an understatement. At the same time, I was navigating the difficulties that come with being one of a handful of Jews in a school where anti-Semitism was almost as common as homophobia.

"Whilst I was spared the worst of the bullying, I still received my fair share of holocaust jokes, and I was left with the feeling that I didn’t belong.

"I coped by hiding my sexuality and pouring myself into my academic work. Although I was dogged by a lingering sense of shame and a constant fear of exposure, I managed to achieve a kind of balance between my external and internal lives, and I enjoyed a lot of my teenage years.

"And gradually, over time, things began to change. I started to see public figures – including gay Jews like Stephen Fry and Simon Amstell – whose experiences and identities I could relate to. I began to surround myself with more queer influences, from Queer as Folk to the Velvet Underground, which affirmed my sense of who I was. And as I left school and moved into the mixed, more liberal environment of university I began to reconcile myself with the fact that I wasn’t getting any straighter, and I came out in my second year of university.

"In the years since coming out I’ve been extremely well supported by my family and friends, many of whom are Jewish. Whilst it’s certainly not been easy to face up to the shame that I’ve carried about my identity, I feel increasingly proud to be part of two overlapping communities with rich histories of resilience, survival and creativity in the face of oppression. And I feel proud to be part of a religious community which is increasingly accepting and affirming its LGBT members.

"But not everyone in our community has been as fortunate as I’ve been. I think we need more visible LGBT role models and allies to demonstrate that it is possible to be both Jewish and LGBT, and to show all members of our community that LGBT people should be accepted for who they are. Judaism is a religion which sees discussion and debate as not simply a means to an end but an end in itself; we need to broaden the debate to ensure that all of our voices are heard in our community today."

Josh lives in London and is a policy intern to the CEO of lesbian, gay, bi and trans equality charity Stonewall.

You can support Stonewall’s work by donating, fundraising, attending their events, sharing their campaigns on social networks or by taking part in a Stonewall Challenge. Find out more information at www.stonewall.org.uk.

JR OutLoud: Judi Herman speaks to the brains behind the musical retelling of the real-life riches to rags story, Grey Gardens

Photo © Scott Rylander

In the mid-1970s Albert and David Maysles – first-generation sons of Jewish immigrants to the US from Eastern Europe – made Grey Gardens, one of their most famous films. The documentary told the story of a mother and daughter from the highest echelons of US Society, Edith and Edie Bouvier Beale, who were the aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The two Bouvier Beale women were discovered living as reclusive social outcasts in Grey Gardens, a dilapidated mansion overrun by cats that was so squalid the Health Department deemed it “unfit for human habitation”.

Now another creative Jewish pair, composer Scott Frankel and lyricist Michael Korie, together with book writer Doug Wright, have brought their multi-award-winning musical based on the film to London. JR’s arts editor Judi Herman, who saw Thom Southerland’s European premiere starring Sheila Hancock and Jenna Russell, was enchanted by this riches to rags story, as you’ll hear in her interview with the three writers.

Grey Gardens runs until Saturday 6 February, 7.30pm & 3pm, £25, £20 concs, at Southwark Playhouse, 77-85 Newington Causeway, SE1 6BD; 020 7407 0234. www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk

Watch the cult documentary Grey Gardens in full below:

See Jenna Russell sing Another Winter in a Summer Town from the musical:

Mona Golabek talks about The Pianist of Willesden Lane, the moving memoir of her mother – concert pianist and Kindertransport child - that she brings to the stage for its UK premiere this January

Adapted by Hershey Felder from the book The Pianist of Willesden Lane, by Los Angelean pianist Mona Golabek and Lee Cohen, this is the true story of Mona’s mother, Lisa Jura, a young Jewish pianist whose dreams about her Vienna concert debut are shattered by the Nazis in the 1938 Anschluss like the glass of Kristallnacht, as her family bravely places her on the Kindertransport to London. Golabek plays live on a concert grand in this moving one-woman show, the London run of which coincides with Holocaust Memorial Day on Wednesday 27 January. Judi Herman talks to Golabek about The Pianist of Willesden Lane to coincide with its UK premiere.

What made you decide to make the book into a one-woman play?

"My path crossed with Hershey Felder, quite a genius in his particular genre and he took me under his wing, believed in the story and adapted the book for the stage.  He helped me to find an inner voice, to inhabit the story and the characters and become my mother in a way – I do become her, imagining her in that story and taking the audience on that journey."

It’s extraordinary to play your own mother, particularly in this circumstance with this very emotional story – is that quite hard for you?

"It’s a very powerful statement to make and people ask me how I’m able to do this night after night. My answer is, this is a privilege and I think it’s become my destiny in a way. When I was a little girl my mother taught me piano and she always told me each piece of music tells a story and in those lessons she told me she told me the story of how she got out on that train and grew up in Willesden Green as a Jewish refugee and how the kindness of that community and the British people was the reason that I, as a little child, was alive.  They saved my life, these people! So I’m coming back to London to say thank you. I’m bringing the story home."

Was the Willesden Lane hostel Jewish, as the matron was a Mrs Cohen, and were all the children Jewish?

"Yes all the children in the hostel were Jewish.  There were all sorts of kids, 30 of them from different parts of Europe."

So is the play a dramatisation of the book?

"It’s an adaptation. The book follows many of the characters who landed up in Willesden Lane.  My mother of course was the primary character.  The play at 90 minutes is a condensation, with strong elements of music."

To me the idea of the music, which your mother handed on to you, sounds so powerful. You are also a very accomplished pianist, which you’ve inherited from her. How did you choose the pieces that you use in the show?

"The music was very much integral to what my mother learned along the way.  So for example the Grieg Piano concerto in A Minor that is so important in this show, this story, was the piece she dreamed of making her debut with when she was a little girl on the way to her piano lessons."

The Steinway that you’re playing in the show is spectacular – is it a special family Steinway?

"All Steinways are special to perform on, though it’s not a special instrument from that time period. It’s a great honour for me to be a Steinway artist. This is a kind of love letter to the piano and to Steinway. Because my mother was a poor refugee girl, she dreamed of playing, making her debut, on a Steinway. She went to hear Dame Myra Hess playing on a Steinway and, that was an extraordinary moment for her. She talked to me about going to hear (Dame) Myra Hess in the war years all the time.  She went to hear Clifford Curzon at the Wigmore Hall and Sir John Barbirolli."

As well the stage show, you have developed a documentary film from your book, is that right?

"Yes, that’s right. We have been shooting I am a Pianist all round America in many different cities where I bring this story to young students. They read the book and create projects around it and experience the show and we’ve been filming that and getting student and teacher reactions, bringing them the story of a Jewish teenager of 70 years ago, which we have found very relevant to young people today."

It’s wonderfully evocative for us here to have a story called The Pianist of Willesden Lane, for London Jews anyway. Willesden is a part of North West London many Jews know – it has been a rather Jewish area.  But of course that name would mean rather less to people round the world, particularly in America. As you say you are indeed bringing the story home.

"You’re absolutely right. I’ve been criss-crossing America bringing a story most people didn’t know about, the story of the Kindertransport. Holocaust education is not mandatory across America, only in certain States, New York, California, New Jersey, Illinois, for example.  So for a broad spectrum of American students in the 21st century, this was their first studying of the time period of this particular storyline. But the most important thing that I always say is that it’s a universal story. It’s being played out now again as we see the terrible movement of refugees and we’re being challenged now today, just as the British people were so extraordinary to take these children in, to give them homes and shelter."

From our point of view here in the UK it couldn’t be more timely, as your run takes in 27 January, Holocaust Memorial Day. As we lose the generation that lived through the Holocaust, the survivors themselves, you, as the second generation, sharing what’s been handed on to you is so vital. Are you an only child?

"I had the most wonderful sister in the world, Rene, but we lost her at an early age. I raised her children and they are all taking on this legacy and feel very deeply about it. One of them actually made a film in Poland about my father’s side of the family. It’s called Finding Lea Tickotsky and it’s been shown herein the USA on CBS."

Let’s go back to the play and the relationships you show in it. You never met your grandmother and yet you must feel you know her.

"Yes, I know her through my mother, and my grandmother figures in the show."

So you play her too, and your mother’s sisters, your aunts… Tell me about your father.

"That would be giving too much about the show. My mother was torn between two men…"

So there’s a lot more to it than just the story of the music. You narrate the story and play the men too?

"I do jump into some characters. The hardest thing for me is my accent. My mother had the most beautiful accent – British tinged with Viennese. I always said she was a cross between English tea and Viennese Sachertorte! I hope the British people will forgive me for my British accent – and my German accent. I hope they will understand that I’m just a daughter and a concert pianist coming back to say thank you for everything. That’s really what this is about."

By Judi Herman

The Pianist of Willesden Lane runs Wednesday 20 January – Saturday 27 February, 7.30pm & 2.30pm. £22.50-£40. St James Theatre, 12 Palace St, SW1E 5JA; 0844 264 2140. www.stjamestheatre.co.uk

To find out more about all the projects in which Mona Golabek and her family are involved, including the documentary films, I am a Pianist and Finding Lea Tickotsky, and the book The Children of Willesden Lane: Beyond the Kindertransport – A Memoir of Music, Love and Survival by Mona Golabek and Lee Cohen, visit holdontoyourmusic.org.

Is NotMoses the Exodus story, but not as we know it? Judi Herman speaks to its writer Gary Sinyor about a tale that's not so set in stone

Manchester-born filmmaker Gary Sinyor makes his theatre debut with NotMoses, an irreverent retelling of the Exodus story – starting with the baby the Princess leaves floating on the Nile when she spots Moses, a nicer baby. NotMoses grows up a slave in Prince Moses’ shadow, until God orders both of them to lead the Israelites out of bondage – though it takes feisty Miriam to actually lead the Exodus. Think Life of Brian meets The Ten Commandments, which Sinyor says is a comparison he hears often.

"I think it's because there is only one other biblical comedy, Mel Brooks’ History of the World. But it is more like The Life of Brian because History of the World went through the ages and this is very much centred on the Exodus from Egypt."

Might this do for Moses what The Life of Brian did for Jesus?

"This started life as a film script and I may make it as a film at some point in the future. Unlike The Life of Brian where you’ve got one character, I sort of knew I needed to have Not Moses and Moses. In a sense, philosophically as well, I knew I wanted to have God in the play. So I knew there were certain things and a couple of scenes that I wanted to do from the off. And then I just had a huge amount of fun writing it. It’s not quite a parody of The Ten Commandments but if you take that film, which has Moses, the Princess, Pharaoh, Rameses, you’ve got certain obvious characters that come to mind. And I knew that I wanted to have Not Moses, a slave in the background of the story in Bible terms, very much in the foreground of the story in this play. You’re looking at the story of the Exodus from the point of view of those slaves in the background, not from the point of view of Moses, who was at the Palace enacting things with Pharaoh. So it’s that dichotomy of having two different families, the slave family in the foreground with the Moses story on the side."

So how did it get to be a play in the theatre rather than a film, when you’ve always been a filmmaker?

"About a year ago someone said to me 'you should do it as a play' and I thought, you’re right! I’m constantly going to the theatre, it’s such an exciting medium, always sold out and quite often people are laughing uproariously. And quite often I go to the cinema and there’s no one sitting in there two weeks after the film has opened. And it goes to DVD and it’s on Netflix very quickly and you’re not experiencing the same amount of fun. You see theatre shows  like The Book of Mormon and Spamalot that have longevity, and for me this story was too funny and too interesting - and potentially a bit challenging – to see disappear after a couple of weeks in a cinema."

It sounds as if you’re going to want to be there every night so you can hug yourself when the audience laughs…

"I was planning on it but I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that the actors would not be jumping up and down to have the director there every night. I may well have to go in disguise. But it’s an extraordinary experience to be in a cinema or a theatre and hear the audience responding to something. So although I am sure I won’t be there every night, I might dress up in disguise on occasions."

My mind is boggling, what will you dress up as? If Moses – or NotMoses – you would be noticed! So it’s a bit like Stoppard’s play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, where two minor characters from Hamlet take centre stage and Hamlet himself soliloquises away in the background?

"The Moses story is there. I shouldn’t call it a bastardisation, a clear retelling or reinvention of the Moses story is there but for me it was important to have a Not Moses – he’s like an atheist, he doesn’t believe in God and he wants to lead the Children of Israel out of Egypt without the help of anyone else. He says ‘we should just get out, go!’ and no one listens to him because people are waiting for God to perform miracles. So, if you like, he’s the rebel slave hanging around in the background of the biblical story. Because I am sure there were people saying ‘let’s get the hell out of here during those two hundred odd years. People rebel and that was one of the things I wanted to tackle. The Bible is itself really weird on this. We have a point of view of what these slaves were doing and what they looked like almost from art and the film. The truth is they left with gold and silver and they seemed to have flocks and cows and it’s difficult to get a handle on what kind of slaves these were."

It’s obvious you’ve read the Torah, checked out the portions. Did you have the sort of upbringing where that’s a given?

"We come from a Sephardi background and we used to go to Synagogue every Shabbat. And I used to read that portion from the Hertz Chumash in English year after year until I was 16 or 17. So it sort of engrained itself. And when I started going again when I was older, I read it again. And at times I read it with an uncritical eye. At one point I did a Project Seed thing and was sold on what they’re trying to do (‘Seed provides adult and family Jewish education across the UK through formal study and informal experiences. We aim to strengthen the family through positive Jewish encounters and by sharing the richness of Jewish life, learning and values’ – from Project Seed website) I thought okay I’ll take that leap of faith and then I undid that leap of faith and now when I go to synagogue I do look at it with a more critical eye."

Your God is emphatically He with a capital H, but then Miriam is not just playing a supporting role, she’s playing a leader’s role. Tell me more about her. It sounds as if God and Miriam are the partnership leading the Children of Israel out of Egypt.

"Miriam comes into the play more and more as it goes on but she is a feminist – not even a feminist, she is just a fighter for equal women’s rights in a very patriarchal world. And even the other women in it are like; ‘shut up and make the soup’. She is very much - and I stress this is a comedy - an early forerunner of the fight for women’s rights, within not just religion but generally. And she probably has the strongest speech towards the end of the play, which lays out a position, more or less in front of God. People do challenge God. There are scenes where Moses does that in the burning bush story in the Bible. He says ‘who am I?’ and I have just taken that a lot further."

I love that you take it seriously as well, though the press have stressed the comedy and irreverence. It sounds as if there are a lot of laughs but it’s not just sending it up.

"No, in a weird way it’s very difficult. You have children and you like the idea of bringing them up in the Jewish religion. We’re caught up in incredibly difficult times and I want my children to be brought up with a cosy, Jewish, lovely warm environment, which offers  a two-year old and a nine-month old Hannukah and it’s marvellous and the memories one has (of Festivals) from Passover to Sukkot are all amazing. But I think if one’s talking about the truth behind these stories, then I certainly think that some of that is challenged by the context of the play."

Do you belong to a synagogue?

"We belong to New North London but because I am Sephardi I also go to the Persian Community at Kinloss. So we alternate between the two, if I go out of the house and turn left I go to New North London, if I go right it’s Kinloss."

You’ve said the audience has a role to play in your show as the Children of Israel…

"When I adapted it from a film into a play, it was a joy. For example in the film I’d been talking to people about how you create 600,000 0r three million people, so there was that whole CGI thing and I was having conversations very seriously about how to make it as a film. When I came to the play I thought, how am I going to do that? I’ll just turn the audience into the Children of Israel! They will experience, for example being harangued by a taskmaster and the 10 plagues will be experienced in some way shape or form that I am not going to go into …! So there is that inclusive quality that theatre offers you and at some points the fourth wall will be broken. I did have a couple of read-throughs previously, after doing workshops on it with the cast and it was extraordinary. We had 20 people who were laughing uproariously. So the idea of having 350 is even better. And I think it will be cinematic as well, it’s not a static play. It has nine members in the cast, down from 600,000."

The Arts Theatre has a good track record of getting lots of people laughing at Jewish humour, with Bad Jews for example, doesn't it?

"It’s a really lovely theatre and they’ve got Ruby Wax coming there in January, which is interesting as well; and more than anything else they are just so enthusiastic to have the play there and give it a ten-week run, which for a new play is really quite extraordinary."

Jews are good at laughing at themselves – I guess they can laugh at religion too?

"I think we can, but I’d be mortified if Christians and Muslims and atheists didn’t come along as well. It’s not like only Christians went to see The Life of Brian. There is something underneath this which well, is just funny, but hopefully it applies to people across the Abrahamic faiths and beyond. It won’t be a solely Jewish cast and it won’t be a solely white cast. So we are doing our best to make it appeal across the board and make a point at the same time."

You’re playing over Purim and Passover – it’ll be like a Purimspiel for Purim.

"Yes we are playing over Purim which will be an exciting night I think. And I have said to the theatre that they should kashrut the bar over Pesach (Passover) and they should certainly be selling matzah sandwiches of some sort. And I haven’t pointed it out to them but they certainly won’t be selling many beers. And yes it’s certainly playing over Purim. Seder night will be difficult, certainly the first night. I think they’ll be marketing to anyone except the Jewish audience that night. Who knows about the second night…"

Second night Seder at your play perhaps?

"There is a Seder in the play as well, the leaving from Egypt."

Actually it might have quite a resonance because it’s so timely, as it’s playing at the right moment running over Passover.

"Yes, it’s the best slot I could have hoped for. Well, I could have hoped for it about five years ago, that would have been good as well."

Manchester does seem to be a hotbed of Jewish creativity, what with Nick Hytner Howard Jacobson and Jack Rosenthal, to name but three.

"I think there is something about Manchester that is very different from London. My children are being brought up in London. Every time I go back, which I do four or five times a year, it does remind you you’re outside of it in a way you’re not in London. In fact the Jewish family in Not Moses that Not Moses is brought up in are going to be talking with Manchester accents."

So they’re 'provincial’ in other words. You must be saying it’s a plus factor too?

"Oh it gives you creative inspiration.  I lived in Los Angeles for a while, where they’re only going to come up with stories about valet parking – they have no angst to build on. Angst is a crucial part. And there’s more angst in Manchester than in London I think – or there could be more in Leeds – I wouldn’t want to claim the crown."

By Judi Herman

NotMoses runs Thursday 10 March – Saturday 14 May, 7.30pm & 2.30pm, £19.50-£69.50, at the Arts Theatre, Great Newport St, WC2H 7JB. http://notmosesonstage.com