My mission to explain frum life...and all things Jewish - The Jewish Chronicle

As I type this during my flight to New York, it strikes me that I seem to have acquired a surprising new career. Somewhere along the way I have become both a comedian and a translator. All I have seem to have done for the past six months is work on translating my comedy into different languages and I’ll shortly find out if the effort was successful.

The first of these translations was to adapt my material for an American audience in readiness for a five week run Off Broadway in New York starting a few days before you read this. In fact I’m at the only Off Broadway theatre with a Broadway address, just a few blocks up from Times Square. That’s right, somehow this British frummer with his black hat, beard, big kippah and peyot will be performing within a stone’s throw of Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen and The Lion King. How did this happen?!

I’ve discovered that there’s one thing the Americans don’t like and that’s when you don’t use their language. So I have been through my show with the finest of fine tooth combs to make sure every mobile is a cellphone, that OAPs are senior citizens and that cloakroom tickets are coatroom tickets. Small difference that last one but this is what Americans are like: “Cloakroom? I don’t know what that is, I only know coatroom. Right, this isn’t for me, I’m leaving!” Likewise all references have been updated for the new audience, with the mentions of Gateshead and Stamford Hill removed and a joke that had the punchline “Michael Aspel” now ending with “Regis Philbin”. No, me neither.

To ensure there is nothing lost in translation I even go so far as to pronounce some words incorrectly, saying gar-age (rhymes with Marge) and a-men-ities. I hate myself for it but I at least make up for it by ensuring every time I say theatre, in my head I spell it our way instead of theater. Take that, New Yorkers.

Sadly for me, the biggest difference is that in the US, Ashley is a girl’s name. Every day people say to me “Ashley?! But you’re a man!” I am particularly bitter about this one since, not only is Ashley usually a man’s name in the UK, but I was given this name by my mother since she was and still is a big fan of Gone With The Wind. An American movie! So clearly it was a man’s name in the US but at some point in between 1975 and 2018, some vindictive git decided to switch it to a girl’s name, just to spite me. One day I will find out who they are and get my own back.

And if translating my stand-up for the Americans wasn’t challenging enough, the other translation I have been working on has been even tougher: adapting my material for a non-Jewish audience. I have wanted to do this for a while but was accelerated when BBC Radio 4 commissioned my show Ashley Blaker’s Goyish Guide To Judaism.

At first this seemed so difficult and actually filled me with sadness as I realised much of my favourite material would have to be lost. You can’t joke about bad parking in Golders Green when the audience has never experienced it. (Parenthetically, you can in New York as the parking in Flatbush, Crown Heights, Monsey, Lakewood and elsewhere makes Golders Green look entirely… well, goyish.) Likewise you can’t joke about refusing to listen to The Doors before putting up a mezuzah when the audience doesn’t know what a mezuzah is.

However I quickly realised that as one door closes, another opens. (Note to self: I must put mezuzahs on both of those doors when I finish writing this article.) So while there are many jokes that I can’t make, there is the immense potential to be mined from explaining to the outside world what our life is like (not sure they believe me though). Because, let me be clear, when the title says Guide To Judaism, it isn’t referring to going to Spurs every other week, seeing who died in the JC’s Social and Personal and enjoying chicken soup.

This is a guide to being strictly orthodox. And let’s be honest, many non-Jews will have seen images of ultra orthodox Jews like me in our big hats, black suits and skullcaps, with side-locks and long string hanging out of our trousers and thought we’re all slightly crazy. But if they only got to know some of what was involved, they’d realise that we’re actually totally crazy. In fact in making this show, I realised that I had so much to say that I have developed it into a new show Ashley Blaker: Observant Jew that I am taking to this year’s Edinburgh Festival in August.

Sadly I need to stop now, partly as I’ve already exceeded my word count but mostly because my Hermolis stuffed chicken and broccoli has arrived and I don’t want it to get cold. Unfortunately neither an American or a non-Jew would know about a Hermolis meal. Their loss.

‘Ashley Blaker: Strictly Unorthodox’ plays at The Theater Center, New York until June 28. ‘Ashley Blaker’s Goyish Guide to Judaism’ is on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday June 3. ‘Ashley Blaker: Observant Jew’ is at the Underbelly in Edinburgh at 3pm daily (except Saturdays) from August 1 to 26