‘Prince of Poets’: UAE’s stoic take on ‘The X Factor’
Ever since it first gained worldwide mainstream attention over two decades ago, reality TV has proven to be one of the small screen’s most polarising mediums.
There have been hundreds upon hundreds of shows since the beginning of the boom that offered slice-of-life insights into a variety of tasks ranging from the death-defying to the mundane, and very few of them manage to break through in a major way. Sex always sells, as does cooping a bunch of people up in a single location and waiting for tensions to boil over, but the competition format has always been one of the most popular.
It’s a simple concept in practice and execution, but audiences never seem to get enough. Whether it’s American Idol, The X-Factor, The Voice, or any of the innumerable offshoots that deploy an almost identical formula, a raft of competitors battling it out until either the assembled judges or viewers – and in some cases both – whittle the field down to a sole victor is something viewers can’t get enough of.
However, one of the biggest hits in the United Arab Emirates takes a much less exuberant, performative, and showy approach to the medium, with Prince of Poets living up to its title by pitting 35 wordsmiths against each other. It’s been running since 2007, and while it’s hardly splashy enough to launch a string of international spinoffs, it’s hard to argue with its success.
Thousands of aspiring poets apply to be selected. The episodes play out to a weekly audience of millions that often ranks Prince of Poets as the highest-rated series on television, with a sold-out studio audience remaining respectful and appreciative of the words being recited in front of them without ever resorting to the whooping and hollering that’s defined the majority of British and American competition formats.
Poetry is one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the Arab world and is comparable to both music and literature in that regard, which is precisely why Prince of Poets wasted time in becoming appointment viewing. It’s the sort of conceit that would never work in the majority of countries where reality TV is a staple part of the viewing schedule, and it’s not difficult to imagine a poet popping up on Britain’s Got Talent going down like a lead balloon made of confusion and bewilderment.
As tends to be the case regardless of which boxes it ticks, though, Prince of Poets hasn’t been immune from accusations of fixing the results. In the very first season, Palestinian poet Tamim Al-Barghouti was the clear favourite to win. Naturally, there were suspicious glances being cast among the viewership when Emirati local Karim Maato was named the victor.
In the fourth season, Egyptian Hisham al Gakh was considered the front-runner, but his politically-charged poem ‘The Visa’ was considered somewhat inflammatory based on its belief that Arabic people should be easily allowed to travel between nations. He even missed an episode to partake in political protests back on home soil but ended up finishing second when the grand finale rolled around.
Even a fairly quaint show about poetry isn’t above the odd conspiracy. However, it would be entirely fair to suggest that the restrained, straight-laced nature of Prince of Poets doesn’t easily translate to countries that prefer their reality shows to be a little more bloodthirsty and boisterous.
