This new play "English people are very nice" by Richard Bean at the national theatre is causing a stir for all the wrong reasons. I actually quite liked the sound of it and had intended it to be a valentines present for Irfana but we saw a film instead. It is set in Bethnal Green, East London and tracks the waves of immigrants into that area, FrenchHuguenots, the Irish, the Jews and the Bangladeshis. I quite liked the idea of different ethnic groupings playing one another and celebrating each otherscultures. Irish bollywood dancers and the like! However it has actually been received by some as insulting, caricatured and even racist. Take a look at these two contrasting views. One very much against the play from The Evening Standard and perhaps surprisingly (or maybe not!) another much more supportive of the play from The Jewish community online
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