As part of this year’s Liverpool Arab Arts Festival, The Unity Theatre is hosting four gripping new plays that have been written by the best U.K. and Middle East’s writers. The four plays, You Don’t Have To Be American To Get Laid But It Helps, Advice to Iraqi Women, The Worst Cook In The West Bank and The Reception are also being performed by an all-female cast.

Liverpool Arab Arts Festival was founded in 1998 by Liverpool Arabic Centre and the Bluecoat to provide Arab arts and culture in Liverpool. Over the years this partnership has grown to include most of the major arts institutions in the city including Picturehouse at FACT, National Museums Liverpool and Liverpool Philharmonic Hall as well as artists and community organisations.

The first festival took place in 2002 and it has run annually since that date as a celebratory event raising awareness and promoting an understanding and appreciation of Arabic culture for both Arab and non-Arab audiences in Liverpool and beyond.

The festival has grown rapidly over the years in size, confidence, expectation and ambition and remains the only annual festival of its kind in the U.K. Key funding for the festival has been secured from Liverpool City Council and Arts Council England.

Having been shortlisted in 2009, in 2010 LAAF was awarded the Arab British Centre’s Culture & Society Award 2010 for an outstanding contribution to the British public’s knowledge and understanding of the life, society and culture of the Arab people.

The four plays are

You Don’t Have To Be American To Get Laid But It Helps

by Hassan Abdulrazzak

Darsh is a philanderer, flying to Vienna on romantic business. Based on the short story ‘Madam Vienna’.

Advice to Iraqi Women

by Martin Crimp

A satire exploring our collective distance from the realities facing Iraqi women.

The Worst Cook In The West Bank

by Hannah Khalil

A Palestinian woman cooks for her family but is sick of the word ‘revolution’, and isn’t afraid to say why.

The Reception

by Maximillian Singh Gill

A Syrian wedding, 2011. Protests bubble in the street, and at the reception everything is going wrong.

Tickets for the performances are priced at £10 with concessions available at £8. Tickets are available from the Unity Theatre Box office.