TV show injects life into modern Arab poetry

As foreign media houses establish their regional presence in the UAE, home-grown TV production firms are also gearing up to face the challenge from abroad and are in fact producing some of the most successful programmes for the region.

The Prince of Poets TV show is one such programme and has become, for another year, one of the most watched TV shows in the Arab world.

Sisters Nashwa and Mona Al Ruwaini are behind this TV programme that is witnessing unprecedented success in the region. Together they produce the multi-million dollar hit reality TV show, along with Millions' Poet, through international production company Pyramedia. Now into its second season, the show's popularity keeps gaining momentum among both the young and old in the Arab world.

At 24 Mona Al Ruwaini is the youngest female producer in the Arab world and has learnt a lot from her elder sister Nashwa, who has become one of the most successful media personalities in the Arab world.

As producer of Prince of Poets, Mona is always on her toes. With the live show going on air every Thursday night and two 30-minute recaps aired every Sunday and Tuesday, she spends most of her week co-ordinating with the many different departments to make sure everything goes off smoothly without any glitch.

Producing Prince requires a crew of more than 80 professionals working round the clock, including the technical and art departments, the scriptwriters and researchers and the logistics and hospitality team whose job it is to make sure the poets are at the right place, at the right time.

"I love the energy and constant buzz of production. Some people may consider this chaotic, but what I love about it is that you get to see the end result straight away when the show is on-air. You see the 2,000-plus audience turn up in the theatre each week, you see how people tune into the show and the feedback of the media in the newspapers and it all pays off in the end and you feel like all the hard work is worth it," said Mona. "My only hope for Prince of Poets is that it attracts viewers as young as 10 and as old as 100 from every home in the region."

The Prince was conceptualised by Nashwa and Mona in association with the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (Adach). Nashwa said: "When they [Adach] told us that they wanted to take classical poetry to the masses we knew straight away that we would be perfect for this production. TV is what we do and my principles have always been to produce shows that are engaging to audiences and represent culturally valid content. Poetry was so popular here but was loosing its hold over the people as the young became more engrossed in western shows. We knew that if we just found the right balance between their heritage and their hobbies the show would become a success."

Nashwa, executive producer of the show used to be better known for her ground-breaking talk shows that she produced and presented over the years with MBC and more recently with her self-titled show Nashwa on Dubai TV.

Now, however, she is better known for her rapidly expanding international production company that has increased its international offices to include London, Cairo and New York. In the UAE she has offices in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Prince is a classical Arabic poetry knockout TV competition that garnered the interest of the Arab region during its first season last year. The show aims to merge modern media concepts with a form of poetry that has been popular for centuries with the masses in order to revive this age-old art among the youth of the Arab countries.

The popular show, produced by Pyramedia for the Adac, is held under the patronage of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE's Armed Forces.

The Prince of Poets TV competition will be aired live on Abu Dhabi TV and the Poetry Channel. The live shows are free for the public to attend at 22:30 at Al Raha Beach Theatre with last entry at 9.30pm, starting on Thursday for ten weeks.