\nMcCarthy said his decision reflected a need to remain true to his principles.\u00a0
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Northern Irish actor Gerard McCarthy has withdrawn from a scheduled London performance of ‘Right Before I Go’ after veteran actress Maureen Lipman was announced as part of the cast, citing her publicly expressed views on \u2018Israel\u2019 and Palestine.<\/p>\n
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McCarthy, known for his roles in The Fall, Call the Midwife and Hollyoaks, had been due to return to the production for its London run at Soho Theatre. Lipman\u2019s addition to the cast was announced on Aug. 26.\u00a0<\/p>\n
McCarthy announced his decision in an Instagram statement issued on Aug. 28. He said he had privately raised concerns following the announcement of Lipman\u2019s casting.<\/p>\n
\u201cFollowing the announcement that Dame Maureen Lipman would be joining the company, I privately explained that, because of views she has publicly and repeatedly expressed regarding Israel and Palestine, I did not feel comfortable personally promoting her involvement.\u201d<\/p>\n
McCarthy stressed that he had not asked for Lipman\u2019s casting to be reconsidered or expected others to adopt his position.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did not ask for her casting to be reconsidered or expect anybody else to share my position.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reflecting on the personal significance of his decision, McCarthy said:<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes you have to be prepared to walk away from something when staying would mean compromising something that matters much more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lipman\u2019s staunch pro-\u2019Israel\u2019 stance<\/p>\n
Lipman has been an outspoken supporter of \u2018Israel’ and has faced criticism from pro-Palestinian campaigners over her public comments. She has previously criticised protests against \u2018Israel\u2019 and called for pro-Palestinian marches in central London to be banned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" McCarthy said his decision reflected a need to remain true to his principles.\u00a0 Northern Irish actor Gerard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-588139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}