{"id":757750,"date":"2026-09-02T13:00:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T13:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/757750\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T13:00:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T13:00:16","slug":"maureen-lipman-tells-gerard-mccarthy-to-grow-up-over-israel-views","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/757750\/","title":{"rendered":"Maureen Lipman Tells Gerard McCarthy To “Grow Up” Over Israel Views"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMaureen Lipman<\/a>, the BAFTA-nominated actress known for her work in The Pianist, has hit out at co-star Gerard McCarthy after he quit their Soho Theatre play over her pro-Israel stance.<\/p>\n

\n\tLipman and McCarthy were due to share a stage in Stan Zimmerman\u2019s Right Before I Go on September 5, but McCarthy walked away from the project citing Lipman\u2019s political views.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn an Instagram post, McCarthy said: \u201cBecause of views she has publicly and repeatedly expressed regarding Israel and Palestine, I did not feel comfortable personally promoting her involvement. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI did not ask for her casting to be reconsidered or expect anyone else to share my position. I simply chose not to use my own platform to promote someone whose political views are at odds with my own.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tResponding in The Times of London, Lipman described McCarthy as \u201ccowardly\u201d for quitting the play without speaking to her directly. She said his Instagram post was \u201cvirtue-signalling\u201d and called on the actor, who has appeared in The Fall, to \u201cgrow up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI am asking for him to have the courage to face me and tell me what he thinks it is I should do, or think, or say,\u201d she said. \u201cI would like to reassure him that I will not be arriving with a star of David on my forehead, nor am I trying to argue him out of his point of view.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe has to wake up and smell the grass. I have worked with actors for 60 years who often don\u2019t share my politics. I don\u2019t ask them, and they don\u2019t ask me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLipman added that McCarthy\u2019s position was curious given it came just weeks after he attended the opening night of Richmond Theatre\u2019s production of Allegra, in which the Olivier Award-winning actress was the lead. McCarthy posed for a photo in front of a poster featuring Lipman\u2019s name in large print.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGerard McCarthy<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI would love to know what has changed in the last six weeks. Has he become radicalised, and by whom?\u201d Lipman said. \u201cI am at a loss, but I would like to extend the olive branch and get a proper understanding of his problem with me. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI am simply a working woman of a certain age who believes that the state of Israel should be allowed to exist. I am an actor, not a politician. There is very little I can do to influence (Israeli prime minister) Bibi Netanyahu, nor would I want to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMcCarthy has been approached for comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tLipman, 80, supports Israel\u2019s right to exist and defend itself, and has previously been critical of artists who publicly back Palestine without mentioning Hamas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maureen Lipman, the BAFTA-nominated actress known for her work in The Pianist, has hit out at co-star Gerard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":757751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,73857,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-757750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-maureen-lipman","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}