“Say ‘Amazing Sardine’ and you’ve just about got the pronunciation of my name,” says Mazen Zahreddine as we set up the interview and recording.

We first met Lebanese Mazen in London for the Beirut Live gig in Brick Lane at the beginning of April and didn’t quite know what to expect….We found, however, a quietly spoken man imbued with cultural and historical understanding, who questions everything and accepts nothing at face value.

Besides being an actor and writer, Mazen is a shock performer whose mission seems to be to change the Lebanese way of thinking; he holds a provocative mirror up to society, questioning beliefs, poking fun at social norms and above all questioning the acceptance of censorship and, particularly in the recording here, the thinking that causes the inexorable cycles of internecine violence in Lebanon.

Listen and standby: By pressing play you will hear explicit material that will cause offence.

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