Saturday, Sep 13, 2008

Gulf News

Dubai: Sha'abiyat Al Cartoon, the popular television series, is what most viewers are watching this Ramadan. This is a show that they have come to love for its satire, unique characters and its focus on local talent.

Sha'abiyat Al Cartoon has attracted viewers of all ages and is as popular among grown-ups as the traditional Arabic soap operas - perhaps even more, making other TV shows hard to compete for viewership, especially during Ramadan.

Dubai has taken the lead in this field, and its own group of talented individuals has come together to produce the third season of the series.

Every evening, after iftar, viewers tune in to Sama Dubai for the 30-minute show. From traffic to cultural interaction among different communities and the rising cost of living, the show spans all aspects of everyday life in the UAE, and Dubai in particular.

The voice-over cast for the popular teleseries is not only talented, but modest to the core.

Gulf News spoke to the people behind the show. The artistes who provide the voice-overs for Shambeih, Hanafi, Bu Sulaiman, Attouga, Dheim and the rest of the characters have a great sense of humour. They offered an insight into their roles, about Dubai and the UAE.

Growth

"The show aims to highlight social and cultural issues in the UAE," said Haidar Mohammad, renowned Emirati caricaturist, inventor of the cartoon series and director of the project.

Mohammad takes pride in the growth the project has witnessed since its inception three years ago.

What started out as short video strips, exchanged through mobile phones, evolved into six-minute and, this Ramadan, into 12-minute episodes aired on television.

Starting with just under five characters, the show soon acquired more depth as the number of characters reached 18. The very first character of the show is Shambeih, a cowardly but cunning local man.

"The topics chosen for the series became more developed with time and its purely comical quality acquired a more serious social take with time," he said. With increased length and depth came broader representation of the countries in the Arab world.

Although the main spoken dialect is Emirati, other Arab dialects like Palestinian, Egyptian, Omani, Saudi, Lebanese and broken Arabic are often heard throughout the show.

"Sometimes we dropped words and added new ones," Mohammad said. "We asked about the correct pronunciations and the meaning of certain phrases to improve the speech," he added.

Featured characters include Bu Sulaiman, a traditional, old-fashioned Omani with a big heart, as Ebrahim Bin Fadel, who gives his voice to this character, describes him.

Ali Al Ahli plays Attouga, a fiery, masculine woman, a new addition to the series. "There is humour in how a man was chosen to play the role of a female," Al Ahli said.

"The names of the characters are meant to be funny and have to come from the society and truly represent the characters," Mohammad said.

Talented caricaturist Mohammad illustrates the characters of the show. One caricature, he said, may take an hour or a week, depending on the elements of the sketch.

"We are like a family," Mariam Al Mansouri, voice artiste, said. As one of the first Emirati women to pave her way through a fledgling career in the Arab world, Mariam said she had her hesitations, but dropped them the moment she stepped into the studio to record the voice of Afari, a four-year-old mischievous child.

"It was as if I knew the team members for a very long time; working here is so much fun - we just love it," she said.

For the cast, the viewers' reaction is what counts the most.

"As the viewers finish watching an episode, we want them to be impressed and amazed by the idea behind it. We are not satisfied with them just liking the episode," Mohammad said.

Judging by the recognition the show has achieved, the producers of the show should have nothing to worry about. The Arab youth have discussed the show on several Arabic blogs, calling it "a masterpiece", "hilarious", and "so much fun to watch".

Expatriate interest

Only Arab viewers have had the opportunity so far to watch this programme. But more and more expatriates, who have heard about it, are interested in watching it and learning more about the local community.

Adnan Omar Al Obthani, Managing Director of Qanawat, co-producer of the show, said English subtitles will be introduced in the third season, which will be aired after Ramadan.

The first two seasons of the show have already been released on DVD. Al Obthani told Gulf News that the producers were considering developing this project into an animation movie.

The originality of the ideas, Mohammad said, was the result of free creative thinking.

"Creative thinkers don't lock their thoughts up in a frame as they are brainstorming the ideas. They would rather give themselves the freedom to deal with a topic in an innovative way, without jeopardising the traditions and values of the society," he said.

"We know that there are sensitive social topics and we respect them. We do not deal with political, religious or ethnic issues. Rather, we focus on light social issues that viewers relate to.

"We try to show that the UAE is a mix of so many different cultures and through our work, we try to promote a culture of tolerance," he added.

The origin

Sha'abiyat Al Cartoon was an old neighbourhood located in Dubai during the 1970s. Although the district is no longer there, the name Sha'abiyat Al Cartoon refers to the coexistence of various communities in Dubai.

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