Living Room Fellow

16/11/2021

Tuesday, 16 November 2021, 08:30 Updated: 13:12

Despite the absurd story, there was something about the Festigal that moved me to tears

Ren Danker became the father of five children (although one was missing at all), Eliana Tidhar stepped into the shoes of Julie Andrews and Israel Katorza surprised in the role of God.

Festigal 2021 kicked off with a huge show, silly plot and some exciting positive messages.

If Noah Kirl had been there, it could have been perfect

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Hanoch Rosen announces that Noa Kirl will not participate in the Festigal due to hospitalization (Photo: Amit Slonim)

It has been exactly 30 years since the last time I attended the Festigal. In retrospect, 1991 was a turning point. Yitzhak Shamir was the prime minister, George W. Bush the father was the president of the United States, and a young singer named Etty Ankry came to the happiest show of the year to suck our lives with a song about a girl suffering from bullying by the boy who lives next door. So about harassment of this kind. Who then heard of mental bullying at all? "Michael" did not win the Festigal, did not even screw up to the top three places in the competition, but he changed the face of the annual children's festival forever by putting in eye-catching songs with issues that really concern children.

30 years have passed, and I travel with my daughter by train to Haifa to watch the first Festigal in her life, and also my first Festigal as a parent.

Along the way, I realize that the choice to get there by public transportation is probably related to the traumatic memories I had of the festivals as a child.

I still remember my mother's despair of the traffic jams in the Yad Eliyahu neighborhood, all the way to the crowded parking lot of the sports hall, then still without a sponsor in the name of a large insurance company.

Suddenly I also realize that my daughter, like Etty Ankry's Michael, has a "son's name".

I wonder how many happy girls owe their beautiful name to that 1991 Festigal.

More on Walla!

After being released from hospital: Noa Kirl is returning to the Festigal today

To the full article

Participants of Festigal 2021 in full composition.

Noa Kirl in the photo missed the opening show (Photo: Or Danon)

It may be another 30 years to remember 2021 nostalgically, but right now it's an oppressive year, to say the least. In order to enter a children's show, the children have to prove that they do not have a corona. To do this, they are required to do an antigen test, whose effectiveness in detecting the virus, especially in asymptomatic patients, is controversial to say the least. While we drove the night before to the MDA station to perform the test without a queue, many of the children and parents come for the mobile tests that were placed outside the Haifa Congress Center. The show itself.

The sequel was not easier.

An impressive human traffic jam was created outside the green sign checkpoint.

Dozens of parents and children are crammed into each other to show the ushers the coveted barcode.

As we stood like sardines and breathed in all the diseases of everyone on our side (not just a potential corona), the feeling was more like entering the big Istanbul derby, and less like entering a fun event for the kids.

The ushers, under pressure from the quantities of people, did not bother to cross between the barcode presented to them on the mobile devices and the people's ID card, so that basically anyone, vaccinated or not, could show some screenshot and enter.

If this is the case, is not it better to just give up all the coverage under this so-called "green character", probably at a kids event?

Despite the scenes taken from "The Sounds of Music", the magic of the Festigal managed to be fresh and original.

Eliad Nahum with a mini bar (Photo: Producer)

After two more inefficient security circuits (this is probably the only country in the world where security guards rummage through the lunch bags of 5-year-old girls), we finally found ourselves inside the hall. So, just a moment before the show started, the news came: the crown of our heads fell - Noa Kirl will not participate in the show. Hanoch Rosen, the eternal director of the show, takes the stage and gives his version of "The Government of Israel Announces in Astonishment." The audience responds similarly to the original. My debut daughter, who goes through all the mourning stages of Kubler Ross in seconds, still tries to convince me that maybe Noa will show up, and finally asks if anyone else will perform the planned string of "diamonds" and "million dollars." I explain to her no. Such bad luck. She chooses to sum up the whole event in one word: "Oops." I have written thousands of articles in my life, but I have never been so accurate as her.

Happily, the show itself was anything but "off".

As soon as the lights went on, and dozens of dancers took the stage while the theme song "SKY HIGH Festigal" began to play in the background, one could forget about all the anguish that led to the huge show.

And he was indeed huge.

It is impossible to say that Noa Kirl's disadvantage was not felt.

Still, she's the biggest star, probably for the festival's target audience.

To differentiate a million differences, it's like editing Live Aid without Freddie Mercury.

It may not be the same, but come on, it's still Live Aid.

Eden Elena in a brilliant performance of the Eurovision song Set Me Free together with the Israeli team in artistic gymnastics (Photo: Producer)

The truth is that Kirl's lack was not felt because she had a small role anyway (about 10 minutes net, according to the production people) and not plot-wise acute. The really big star of the show was Eliana Tidhar, who at her 11th festival no longer has to deal with comparisons to children's stars from the past like Tzipi Shavit, Hani Nachmias or Michal Yanai. It’s hard to put a finger on what makes Tidhar such a big star at relevant ages and in general, and probably shouldn’t be understood. She's not the best singer in the production, not the best actress, but her star quality is unquestionable. The endless grace of Tidhar, which is received with true love by all the children in the hall, cannot be ignored. During the show she seems to be able to wave and smile at almost every one of them.

Another star who is in another league is Static from the duo "Static and Ben El".

We will not make the obvious comparison between the two members of the duo, each of whom brings something different to the phenomenon of the decade in Israeli pop, but when it comes to children's shows - Static is one league above all the rest.

The truth is, it's quite strange that a duo on the scale of Static and Ben El in general find themselves in the Festigal, but to the credit of both it can be said that not even a drop of condescension was evident on the young audience.

The big stars of the evening.

Eliana Tidhar with Static and Ben El (Photo: Production Singer)

In the current festival Tidhar plays the character of "Malachiana", an angel sent to Earth to save the Osher family from the depression in which they have been since the death of the mother of the family. The story is pretty silly, involving Israel Katorza as the director of the Academy of Angels (The Manal, originally. Such a pun). A static is an "angel of challenges" who imposes on humans difficult tasks that develop their character or something; Ben El is a "family angel" whose job it is to take care of families and Kevin Robin is an "angel of wishes" to whom all the wishes of children who put out birthday candles are drained.

Tidhar's character is sent to Ran Danker, 37, who looks like a 27-year-old who functions as a father of five children (one of them is Noa Kirl, who was not mentioned at all in the show, so it's a bit unclear why they did not just say he was a father of four).

Danker's return to the Festigal stage is another little story in his huge comeback this year.

Who was one of the biggest festival stars of the beginning of the first decade of the century, returns as one of the great pop stars of the period.

Still, his casting as a father of five (adult) children pretty much undermines the credibility of the whole story.

Yes, even if it's a story about angels sent from heaven by Katorza to sing pop songs.

Learn from past mistakes, and combine a perfect show with positive messages.

Festigal 2021 (Photo: Singer Productions)

Since the "storm" of the selfie song in 2014, which took the pure direction of Etty Ankry for eye-level songs for children to the extreme districts, there has been no song competition at the Festigal - and the show tries to include positive messages for children. The result is something completely different from my childhood memories, so there were facilitators who passed the time between songs. More than 30 years have passed, but I still remember Moni Moshonov and Shlomo Brava leading the festival, including a great plank joke about a chicken falling in love with Brava but he is not willing to marry her with the wonderful claim: "Where do I go if she is Jewish at all?". Amazing what the human mind chooses to remember.

The current festival is celebrating the 40th time that the veteran children's show is coming to the stages (technically it is the 41st festival, if you consider the interactive show held in the closure of 2020) with several positive messages coming through Ren Danker's 'children' in the show. The creators of the show seem to have learned from that storm of "The Selfie Song," and the show is perfectly suited to children with a distinctly holmes motif alongside a huge show. Parents can send their children to it without fear. what is on the menu? Bar Miniali (due diligence: sister of a friend, so I was unable to write how stunning she is in the role) deals with love with "bad boy" (Eliad Nahum), Kim Or Azulai deals with dyslexia or other undiagnosed learning disability, Eden Elena has stopped talking since Her adoptive mother dies and Shahar Tabuch, surprisingly well, faces bullying at school. In fact, the moment Tabuch decides to stand his ground and scolds his bully (Bar Brimmer) was tear-jerking. I did not expect to shed a tear at the Festigal, certainly not in such a ridiculous children's story,But it happened when all the hundreds of children in the audience responded with applause to the weak child who wanted to introduce his inner hero.

The whole story corresponds, perhaps a little too much, with the plot of the classic "sounds of music".

Eliana Tidhar steps into the big shoes of Julie Andrews, while alongside the natural charm, her new hairstyle is also reminiscent of the British diva.

"Malachiana" helps each of the children, in a beautiful section against the background of the good original song in the production, "A Place for Yourself" written by Eliad Nahum and Uri Gross.

As in the play by Rogers and Hammerstein, here too there is a scene of youthful love forbidden in the gazebo, and also a "bad" woman that the father falls in love with, in a surprising local casting in favor of Rona Lee Shimon.

In a short dance segment to the sounds of an old hit by Jennifer Lopez, Shimon mentions that there is no one in this production who knows how to sing better than how she knows how to dance.

Ren Danker as the father of five "kids" aged 20 on average?

Total Reliable (Photo: Production Singer)

The second part of the show included, in the best tradition, mostly bouncy numbers of the stars of the show, here also stood out the lack of Noa Kirl who would surely have bounced the audience. Yes, there was "Crazy House" in a cute mash-up with "My New Dress" by Ren Danker, and also "Todo Bom" by Static and Ben El, and even a surprising performance of "Zero Effort" in a duet with Eliana Tidhar. But above all, Zehava Ben stood out - someone I did not believe I would get to see bouncing at the Festigal. Quite surprisingly, Zehava won the most applause from the crowd, and managed to bounce the crowd off with an original Moroccan string.

The 5-year-old reviewer who came with me to the show was mesmerized throughout the show, and to my delight absorbed all the positive messages they dropped on her. While I recognized a number of minor flaws, the 5-year-old shining came out of the show with one negative critique:But the main thing is that she will be healthy so that we can see her again on Hanukkah. "

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