Very active and as keen on Moroccan culture as his predecessor, the current UK ambassador to Morocco, Simon Martin, indulged in a new exercise, that of a show. In Marrakech, the London representative in Rabat turned into a popular actor in Jamaâ El Fna square where he hosted a halka to tell the story of Winston Churchill’s love for the Ochre city in front of an attentive crowd. This sequence made the rounds of the media and social networks. For this reason, Mr Martin granted us an interview to give us more details on his approach, which has been widely commented on in the media. “The idea behind this initiative is to celebrate the tradition of storytelling in Marrakech and to help the Ochre city to revive after the reopening of the borders”, explains the ambassador.

Asked why he chose the story of Winston Churchill, Simon Martin explains that the idea came to him from his assistant who reminded him of an anecdote. In 1935, the British leader visited Marrakech for the first time and wrote to his wife to express his admiration for the Ochre city. “I dug up some history and discovered that during the Anfa conference, Churchill told Franklin Roosevelt that he could not visit North Africa without visiting Marrakech,” the ambassador tells us enthusiastically, recalling that the famous Prime Minister had painted one of his most famous pictures in Marrakech. It is The Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque, a work that ended up in the collection of the American actress Angelina Jolie, who put it up for sale.

This is how the Ambassador got the idea to tell this story in Jamaâ El Fna, by dressing up as a typical British gentleman to look like Churchill. “I was able to get the frock coat from the festival organisers, Mike and Lucie,” says Mr Martin, who explains that his participation in the festival is a way of introducing Marrakech and its charm to his fellow countrymen to encourage them to come, now that the borders are open.

According to the ambassador, the festival is a success in terms of organisation, as it has brought together several storytellers from several countries. For this reason, the festival will be very successful in the years to come as one of the festival organisers, Lucie and Mark Andersen Wood, have restored a riad in Marrakech to house the World Storytelling Cafe. “It will be a wonderful place to keep this tradition alive,” says Mr Martin.

Very involved in the cultural sphere, the British ambassador has the ambition to continue to promote English-speaking culture at a time when Moroccan youth is showing more and more sympathy towards the language of Shakespeare. In this respect, Martin Simon announces the holding of an English book festival in Marrakech next autumn. “It was planned last year, but unfortunately we couldn’t do it because of the constraints of the pandemic,” says the ambassador, who is delighted with the growing passion of young Moroccans for English literature. “