Mick Hartley

From the JC:

A musical about being queer and Jewish in the wake of October 7 has been cancelled by a central London venue after it came under attack on social media.

Israeli actor Roi Dolev, 28, had been set to stage a work-in-progress reading of his new show, Useful Idiots, at the Phoenix Arts Club in Soho on Friday.

But less than two weeks before the performance, the venue pulled the show, citing safety concerns and confusion over the play’s message following negative Instagram comments.

Can we guess the nature of those comments?

Tickets went on sale on June 10, and on Saturday, Dolev posted the show’s digital poster on Instagram – featuring a watermelon handbag and a rainbow keffiyeh on a beach – along with a link to book tickets.

On Sunday, Phoenix Arts requested that Dolev collaborate on the Instagram post, meaning the poster would be shared with the venue’s 22k followers.

Within minutes, comments on the post appeared stating, “Free Palestine,” “Nobody wants a Zionist play”, and “@phoenixartsclub you should be ashamed of yourselves.”

Less than an hour later, the venue removed itself from collaborating on the post and the image disappeared from their Instagram page.

So brave, these theatre people. 

But the next morning, he received an email saying the venue had “made the difficult decision to cancel the upcoming performance”, citing concerns about “safety and suitability”.

A prescient title for the show, then. Useful Idiots.