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    Just when I thought I couldn't dislike Maureen Lipman more than I already do Archived Message

    Posted by Raskolnikov on August 18, 2020, 7:01 am

    the fraud gives her a big interview, to push her new play (...a story of one woman’s recollection, from the Holocaust to the six-day war, and slightly beyond, and how she comes to make a stand herself, rather than just survive.)), and after a couple of graphs about the play she gets onto Israel and just spits bile all over the place. What a horrendous woman. Also, I thought she was ####ing off to Israel because....anti-semitism an' ting.

    https://www.dumptheguardian.com/stage/2020/aug/18/maureen-lipman-interview-rose-martin-sherman

    “But we’re in a different timeline, because anybody can play Shylock, and they do. Anybody can play a survivor, and they do.” For all that Lipman is famously outspoken, I can’t work out what she really thinks. Should anybody be allowed to play Shylock? Did Scarlett Johansson make a good choice? “I am all for people fighting for their rights. Of course. But if somebody’s playing a Holocaust survivor, and I’m looking at them on the television and know that they’re not and never have been Jewish, have I got the same right to say, ‘They shouldn’t play that because they’re not?’”

    Remember this.

    To return to the role of Rose, and Lipman’s audience encounter in Messiah, I wonder whether there isn’t another element to her trepidation about taking on another Sherman play – whether creatively delving into a collective trauma is actually quite traumatic to do. “The early Sherman play was 17th century, so that was a different trauma, they were fleeing a pogrom. But yes, collective trauma is something I’m very aware of. I’m very aware, particularly in my business, of the attitude towards the only Jewish state in the world.”

    What a segue: Maureen Lipman is famous for her defence of Israel. She actually reprised Beattie for a video attacking Jeremy Corbyn at the last election, but her falling out with the Labour party went back to the leader before – she was furious with Ed Miliband for supporting a House of Commons motion to recognise Palestine as a state.

    I thought you were all for people fighting for their rights? Yeh, not so much!

    Yet in any conversation about politics, she remains principally vigilant about Israel; even when it’s miles from the topic, we somehow end up back there. So we jump from Johnson and what a mess he makes, back to the Labour party and whether or not antisemitism has gone away (“you can see it hasn’t”) and suddenly we’re at the explosion in Beirut, which had happened that day. “As soon as Lebanon happened, I can imagine the types that were ready to say, ‘Israel’s on the border, did they, would they, could they?’ I’m very grateful that Hezbollah said they did it.”

    Wait, what? It was an accident resulting from political fecklessness, Hezbollah isn’t even the largest party in the Lebanese parliament, and definitely nobody said they did it. She makes a noise as though we’ll just agree to differ.

    How dare you hack! You differ from my Hasbara line? Then I will just "make a noise as though we'll just agree to differ". That right there shows just how bankrupt her ideas are. The slightest challenge and there's no comeback except acting as if the challenger is an idiot.

    Lipman’s hardline stance on Israel, she suggests, means that she won’t work with certain actors who support the Palestinian cause. “I won’t be going on tour with The Killing of Sister George with Maxine Peake and Miriam Margolyes, put it that way.”

    What makes you think they'd want to "work" with racist maniac like you?

    Peake, sure, would be an impossible acquaintance, after her recent comments – which she retracted – were deemed anti-Israel enough to get Rebecca Long-Bailey kicked off the Labour front bench for retweeting her. But Margolyes, surely, is different. Yes, she vocally supports Palestine, but they’re two character actresses of the same generation (Margolyes is five years older) – they must have gone up for the same parts, been to the same parties for decades; there must be times when they meet and don’t talk about Israel?

    “We’ve seen each other at the odd funeral,” she concedes. “I don’t wish her ill. And she’s a very successful leftwing socialist with several houses. Take my point. Need I say more.” Well, not unless you want to … “Most of the stuff that I say is not that dissimilar to her. We’re opinionated women, we’ve got a platform, we tend to spew out the first thing that comes into our fevered little brains. It’s just that, unfortunately, I’m right.”

    What an arrogant, spiteful, hate-filled twat she is.

    Then there is this:

    Give or take a quick drive-by attack on John McDonnell and Diane Abbott, this has a mellowing effect on the conversation, and she reverts to the views of the Blair-era luvvie – worried about the future of theatre...

    "drive-by attack on John McDonnell and Diane Abbott" the nature and details of which I am not going to report in my report of the interview in which they were made. Now THAT'S quality journalism. It really is a dereliction of the duty of a journalist. The only reason I can think of for not reporting them is that they make Lipman seem even more of a ranting lunatic and they it was supposed to be a puff piece for her latest dress-up party.

    All round, disgusting. Compare her with the humility and compassion of Miriam Margolyes. Just dreadful.

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