HAVE you heard the one about the two Palestinian actors and the British political comedian? You soon will.

Showtime From the Frontline is touring Britain from next week and, bringing this newly formed trio led by veteran troublemaker-in-chief Mark Thomas to a theatre near you, it has that unlikely subject for comedy, the Israeli occupation, in its sights.

The fact that it’s happening at all is something of a minor miracle, given the huge obstacles Faisal Abualheja and Alaa Shehada faced just getting out of the occupied West Bank to Britain.

When I meet them, the three performers have just finished a day’s rehearsal in a studio in east London’s Stratford Theatre Royal. The historic venue’s regal name belies the fact that it is a much-loved centre for “people’s theatre” rather than anything aristocratic or elitist.

And it’s just the place for a radical comedian like Thomas, who’s working with two talented Palestinian refugees determined to overturn stereotypes about themselves and their situation by using comedy.

Raucous laughter breaks out frequently during our conversation. Thomas, renowned for his solo shows, says mischievously: “For me I think one of the challenges is allowing other people on the stage.”

Abualheja hits back: “We are trained in Palestine after 60 years of occupation. We know how to deal with someone like this and still we insisted on him apologising for Balfour, but he didn’t.”

“I have apologised every fucking day,” replies Thomas, referring to the British declaration of 1917 that handed Palestine to Jewish settlers.

Halfway through rehearsals, exactly what is being created is not entirely clear. “We still don’t know the result,” says Shehadah, “but what I hope we will do is break the stereotype of what ‘refugee’ means, what ‘Palestinian’ means, because every time you travel around as an artist suddenly there is a stereotype about who you are. You are a terrorist or victim.

“That’s the picture you’ve got, so we are trying through this show to humanise the story, to remind people that we as Palestinians are human.”

Shehada and Abualheja, both refugees from the West Bank who trained at Jenin Freedom Theatre, have worked with international clown group Red Nose International in Palestine, visiting hospitals to entertain sick children. Shehada and others started their own troupe last year, Palestinian Laughter Liberation, which he says brings comedy into the frame of politics in the occupied territories.

Abualheja sees Showtime From the Frontline as creating a new language of laughter to overcome the barriers between peoples and culture. “In this show there are different cultures, different stories, different languages. Laughter is our language, theatre is our language. To bring that language so we can speak together as British and Palestinian artists, we create our own language to communicate.

“This is the powerful thing. We are moving forward to make a new language of comedy.”

The show came together out of a comedy workshop which Thomas, a long time supporter of Palestinian solidarity against the Israeli occupation, and collaborator Sam Beale, who teaches stand-up at Middlesex University, held last year in Jenin.

As Thomas explains, “Our philosophy was we weren’t going to tell anyone what to say. What we were there to do was teach people some skills they may not have in order that they can say what they want.”

Out of the workshop, Shehada and Abualheja put on their own comedy in Jenin at night during Ramadan. “We invited all the people after their fasting, we started at nine and it went for three or four hours,” says Alaa. “Really great,” adds Faisal.

But doing comedy in the occupied West Bank has its unique problems. “It’s not easy because first there are many challenges, as an artist has all over the world, which is to find a job. But in Palestine there are different challenges — to find a job, yes, but to struggle with the community around you, then to struggle with the occupation.

“Many times I've wanted to go and perform in Bethlehem, but we get stopped at the checkpoints and we can’t perform there, so we cancel the performance.”

The places they need to perform are in Israel, such as Haifa and Jerusalem, says Shehada, “because we want to meet our own Arabic audience, but we cannot because we don’t have permission to go there.”

Another challenge is the NGOs and funding. “There is a system around you which is like the second or the fourth occupation,” Abualheja says. “It’s like everything in the country, all Palestine becomes a big NGO organisation. There is nothing coming from inside.”

This is not because Palestinians can’t do things for themselves but because the occupation prevents them from doing so at every step. “Palestine is a community of farmers, but it is not allowed for any farmer to dig a well for water. This is illegal, the Israelis will come and you will pay a lot of money and they will close it with concrete. So this is what keeps the mentality of waiting for the money from outside.”

Much of their homeland is also off limits to the actors, including the capital Jerusalem that US president Donald Trump decided in December belonged wholly to Israel. The world, as it happened, disagreed.

“The only time I have been in Jerusalem, I was 26 years old. Five months ago, I got an invitation to be in the US for a clown workshop. The consulate is in Jerusalem. I have to go to apply there for a visa, but I cannot go.

“Then I spoke to the Americans and the Americans send papers to the Israelis and then the Israelis send papers for me …” Shehada is speaking in a frenetic voice that speeds up until the words meld together, reflecting the bureaucratic madness of being a Palestinian trying to get on with his life.

“Then, after I waited for two weeks, I get permission to be in Jerusalem for six hours, by an invitation from the States to be in my homeland.”

Problems for Palestinians do not end at the Israeli border. Shehada himself nearly didn’t make it here for the rehearsals thanks to Britain's Byzantine visa system. “It was a nightmare this time, a last minute decision and finally, thank God, they let us come.”

For Thomas, the British visa system is beyond a joke or just ripe for one and another example of the British state’s obsession with outsourcing services to corporations. The visa application customer service was outsourced last May to a company called Sitel.

“The application goes from the British consulate to the embassy in Amman, then to a company in Sheffield,” he says. “We are looking at a whole new document, a whole new administrative process. Because it has been outsourced you can’t phone up the consulate and ask what’s happening.”

There were massive delays on Shehada’s visa, taking six weeks instead of the expected three and the trio tell a real-life shaggy dog story of the bizarre series of bureaucratic hoops that faced the actor before and after he arrived in Britain, involving police stations, biometric cards and very expensive phone calls.

For Thomas, this is the story of collapsed British public service provider Carillion and the “obsession” Britain has had with outsourcing to private companies. “What Alaa and Faisal are describing is just the stupidity of handing over these functions of the state to outsourced companies.”

Thomas has been in the front line of British political comedy since the 1980s. More recently he has focused on political writing as well as touring, but over the years one struggle has remained close to his heart, Palestine.

In 2009 he made a typically quixotic decision to shine the spotlight on Israel’s apartheid wall by walking along it, a feat that was met with misunderstanding and obstruction.

While there, he visited the Jenin Freedom Theatre on the West Bank and met its founder Juliano Meir Khamis. Two years later, Meir Khamis was gunned down by an unknown assailant in 2011, but, despite this shocking act of violence and attempts to burn it down, the theatre lives on.

After all the trials, the two Palestinian actors are here and Showtime From the Frontline is happening. Abualheja is optimistic.“We don’t have to convince everybody, because otherwise we would be lost in trying to convince people. Let’s do what we like, let’s have fun with it and then they will come.

“I remember my brother saying if we brought a 100 politicians to talk about Palestine it would not be as powerful as this play. And we are a conservative family, we are refugees, we live in a camp.

“So, you see, there is hope.”

Showtime From the Frontline tours from January 30 until April 21, details: markthomasinfo.co.uk

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