Gerald McCarthy hits back at Maureen Lipman with lengthy statement after actress brands him ‘cowardly’
Gerard McCarthy has issued a detailed rebuttal to Dame Maureen Lipman after the 80-year-old actress accused him of bullying and branded his withdrawal from their shared Soho Theatre production “cowardly.”
“For the avoidance of doubt: I have never met Maureen Lipman. I have never spoken to her. I have never contacted her. I have never asked for her to be removed from a production, nor have I ever refused to work with her. We were never scheduled to perform together,” he wrote.
“So if I have managed to bully her, I have done so with remarkably little effort.”
The Northern Irish actor, known for roles in The Fall and Call the Midwife, pulled out of Stan Zimmerman’s Right Before I Go, which opens at the Soho Theatre on September 5.
Gerard McCarthy hit back at Maureen’s claims
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PAMr McCarthy confirmed that he had indeed attended the opening night of Allegra at Richmond Theatre, as Dame Maureen pointed out.
However, he said he went at the invitation of producer Thomas Hopkins to support a friend’s work.
“I thought Maureen gave an excellent performance and said so,” he wrote.
Yet he argued that admiring her stage work had prompted him to look more carefully at her own public remarks on Israel and Gaza.
“Unfortunately, being impressed by Maureen speaking somebody else’s words led me to pay rather more attention to the ones she was choosing for herself,” he said.
“Not being a paid-up member of the Maureen Lipman Newsletter, I hadn’t appreciated quite how many there were. And some of them I found deeply troubling.”
He also drew attention to what he described as a striking inconsistency in Dame Maureen’s position.
In a 2020 Guardian interview, she had stated that her stance on Israel meant she would not tour with actors Maxine Peake and Miriam Margolyes, who supported the Palestinian cause.
Gerald McCarthy pulled out of the Right Before I Go shows
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“Which rather leaves me wondering what exactly we’re arguing about,” Mr McCarthy wrote.
He further noted the irony of Dame Maureen recounting how she once declined to appear alongside Margaret Thatcher over political differences, whilst simultaneously labelling him “cowardly, stupid and ignorant” for stepping away from a production on similar grounds.
Dame Maureen has said she now regrets that decision regarding Ms Thatcher.
Mr McCarthy responded drily that should he find himself on the wrong side of history in four decades, he would take her up on her offer of a conversation.
The most pointed passage in Mr McCarthy’s statement addressed what he saw as an implication that his objections were rooted in antisemitism.
Maureen Lipman had blasted the actor following his decision to leave the upcoming shows
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Dame Maureen had written that her role in Coronation Street did not provide “a back channel to Bibi Netanyahu, despite the fact that yes, I am Jewish.”
Mr McCarthy was unequivocal in his response.
“Nothing about my decision had anything to do with Maureen being Jewish,” he wrote. “Antisemitism is abhorrent, and I condemn it without qualification.”
He insisted that conflating criticism of her publicly stated views with hostility towards Jewish people would be “both inaccurate and unfair.”
Mr McCarthy concluded his lengthy statement by referring to Ms Lipman’s suggestion he “grow up.”
“I sincerely hope I continue to have that opportunity,” he wrote. “Tens of thousands of children in Gaza never will.”
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