WharfMA: Eid in the Wharf

It's hard to believe that it's been a whopping three years since I last attended a WharfMA Eid in the Wharf event. Personally I had found that I had kinda grown out of the whole Muslim Professional Networking thing a couple of years ago - so it's quite ironic that I find myself in the thick of the scene working where I do now.

And if I'm honest I would have given this year a miss too. But this year the organisation I volunteer for, ICSS, decided to make a well organised push to recruit at the event. In other words tonight was more about work than socialising. Ahem.

Of course that didn't mean I wasn't going to enjoy the entertainment on offer. The WharfMA decided to take a distinctly arty yet eclectic turn this year, with a whole bunch of weird and wonderful artists performing alongside the more regular ones. First up was David J, a spoken word artist who may have even been my favourite performer of the night. This wasn't the flippant and rhetorical stuff I was expecting but actually multi-dimensional and entertaining on an obvious (ie funny) level.

Daniel Waples managed to stun the audience with his Hang Drum skills, and I was really impressed by the sound that he was able to create on his own. The next act was pretty much pure fan-service for the girls - Sound of Reason had popped over from Canada to do a few sets. Now I really don't like the whole Nasheed thing but these guys were more on the Outlandish side of the scale so I was able to enjoy it more than I would have otherwise. Well until the girls in the audience regressed to teenagers. No, I'm not hating. What was really ironic is how uninvolved the audience was otherwise - come on guys, are we so uptight that we can't even wave our arms in the air to a beat?

I have a theory about Islamic (or rather, brown) Comedy: that it doesn't exist. Aman Ali didn't disprove this idea, although there were two times that I did actually laugh out loud. Still the audience seemed to love it more than I did, so I will put it down to me being a grouch (either that or Muslims just don't get out much).

Otherwise the event flowed smoothly enough; Mohammed Ali hosted and engaged the audience well while the ancillary speakers did their part (although I do think that the majority of those twenty who were donating £1000 a piece didn't actually realise it. Hopefully I'm wrong). The food before and after was adequate enough, and there was plenty of time to mingle - sorry, I mean "network" - after the entertainment had finished.

We even managed to drum up a record level of interest in the schools, so in our eyes it was a massive success; but even aside from that it was a decent enough way to spend a Friday night too.