Oooooh, SO close!

Saw this on Yahoo just now.

"Little is off limits for artists at the Edinburgh Fringe, with a record 50 shows about religion, covering Islam, Christianity and Judaism." Islam, up FRONT! See? We're BALANCED! We make fun of everybody! Bully for you guys!

-- "Petrol Jesus Nightmare," a dark play about two Israeli soldiers holed up under fire, is among the most prescient plays. -- Ok, Christianity (how BOLD!) and possibly Judaism.

-- "The playwright Henry Adam doesn't spare any of the world's faiths in his onslaught. All religions ask you to kill in God's name." -- Kind of everybody here, but no examples.

-- Abie Philbin Bowman, whose one-man show "Jesus: The Guantanamo Years" is playing to sell-out houses, says comedy can be an effective weapon if used responsibly. -- Christianity, AND anti-Bush administration. Again, how DARING! Show me the Yasir Arafat satire!

-- He said Jews had developed an incredible siege mentality after 2,000 years of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust "and now they are surrounded by people who want to destroy them."

He added: "You have got to try and understand where they are coming from sympathetically and try to show them they are sowing the seeds of their own future destruction." -- They? Them? Who are these pronouns talking about? I'm not being sarcastic, I don't know. Is he saying that those surrounding the Jews are sowing the seeds of thier own destruction? That IS a little edgy (and not what I usually read in the papers). No names are named, so I'm not giving points.

-- On the other side of the religious coin, "We Don't Know Shi'ite" uses vox pops conducted by a troupe of young actors in the streets of Britain to highlight ignorance about Islam. -- Very noble. How about ignorance of Christianity? Or Judaism? (Maybe something about Jews do NOT drink the blood of Muslim children? That would be enlightening, wouldn't it?) Not exactly PUSHING THE LIMITS kind of stuff, is it?

Ok, scanning the article again... Using my search function... Jesus - 5 times. Mohamed - ZERO! "South African playwright Michelle van Rensburg said: "People have always been searching. It has just come to the fore. But I must say there are an awful lot of Jesuses at this year's Fringe." Why is that, if it's open season on everybody?

It's official: They're full of crap. But it was a nice try.