I left Andrew Schulz’s show in Dubai about halfway through because he wasn’t being very funny. Last time I saw him, in London on his 2023 Life tour, the magnitude of his energy and personality seemed hardly contained by the vast Royal Albert Hall. He killed, as stand-up comics so love to say. But here in the Coca-Cola Arena, he looked diminished or at least very tired – jet lagged, I reckoned, having only the previous day flown in from the US.
More than anything, Schulz seemed to want the audience to know he’d done his homework and had a deep understanding of the frustrations and peculiarities of life in the emirates. After a while, perhaps after he’d yet again repeated the notorious gag he made on his last visit to the UAE – the one about the plumbing in the Burj Khalifa – the schtick grew thin. The audience didn’t groan exactly, but I can’t have been alone in thinking: ‘it’s ok, you don’t live here. You don’t need to pretend you do. Just be funny’.
He got stumped trying to do crowd work when an audience member in the front row said she was from Azerbaijan. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know anything about Azerbaijan,’ he eventually confessed, having stroked his moustache ruminatively for the better part of two minutes while trying to think of something funny to say in reply. It was an unfortunate energy zapper. The zingers apparently don’t fly so well when mind and body think they’re still in New York.
None of this is to knock Schulz, who is very obviously a brilliant comic. If anything, it’s heartening to see a comedic performance that isn’t polished to within an inch of its life. It’s the joy of the artform. You never really know what you’re going to get. Sometimes funny men aren’t very funny. Other times, they make you laugh so hard you can hardly breathe. That’s the point.
His warm up guys – with the exception of local comedian Abz Ali – were truly terrible. But then they were also terrible at the Albert Hall. That’s also the point. Their job is to make Schulz look good. On a typical showing, they’re very good at it.
Schulz played Dubai presumably as a lucrative warm up on his way to an even more lucrative appearance at the inaugural Riyadh Comedy Festival, where it was rumoured top flight comedians like Louis CK, Dave Chappelle and Kevin Hart were picking up cheques of $1.6 million for a single night’s work. Predictably, the festival caused howls of outrage from achingly liberal members of the Western left wing commentariat – how dare they even laugh in Saudi Arabia, was the gist – who wrote multi-thousand word articles full of the kind of sneering condescension that until only a decade ago uniformly characterised all coverage of Dubai. Perhaps the citizens of Riyadh should be encouraged by this.
“A leaked contract issued to performers outlined topics that would be deemed unacceptable to the hosts. Jokes about Saudi Arabia itself were strictly off-limits: its royals, its legal system, its government. Any religious material was a no-go,” whined the Guardian sportswriter Jonathan Liew, who has clearly never watched a comedian entertain at say, a corporate event, where he or she will routinely beforehand be told the areas – the company, the management, the CEO – to stay clear of if they expect to be paid (all journalists also understand this deal, for what it’s worth).
“I do shows everywhere … and when this came up, they said there’s only two restrictions – their religion and their government – and I don’t have jokes about those two things,’ explained Louis CK, quite reasonably. “When I heard the festival was opening, I thought: that’s awfully interesting. That just feels like a good opportunity. And I just feel like comedy is a great way to get in and start talking.”
Comedian Whitney Cummings was less equivocal. Describing criticism of her decision to perform in the kingdom, she said: “It’s just racism. I think it took me a second, because when people are going like, ‘You’re doing something unethical,’ I’m like, ‘Oh, these must be ethical people, let me listen.’ And then you’re like, ‘Oh no, you’re just racist.’”
The Riyadh Comedy Festival more than anything else that is happening today in Saudi Arabia is emblematic of a very deliberate vibe shift – by which I mean liberalisation and a level of enthusiastic engagement with the rest of the world that only a short time ago would have seemed unthinkable. Is this not something to be vigorously celebrated? What would the likes of Liew and The Atlantic’s Helen Lewis – who sneered “bored young men in the Gulf once turned to jihad, now they have Jimmy Carr making jokes about dildos. This is called progress” – prefer? That the kingdom goes back to not allowing non-religious visitors in – as was the case as recently as 2019 – or that the ban on all concerts and cinemas that was lifted in 2018 be reinstated? Can it be they really hate progress that much?
Comedy is only threatening to people or societies that are afraid of being laughed at – which is really just another way of saying that humour is only terrifying to the humourless. Acceptance of comedy by definition signals a degree of maturity and sufficient self-awareness to realise that it’s ok sometimes to be the butt of the joke, just as it’s ok also to laugh at the strangeness of life.
Bill Burr was heavily criticised for saying it, but perhaps he had a point when he stated of his appearance at the festival: “Everyone was happy. The people that were doing the festival were thrilled. The comedians that I’ve been talking to are saying, ‘Dude, you can feel the audience wanted it. They want to see real stand-up comedy.’ It was a mind-blowing experience. Definitely top three experiences I’ve had. I think it’s going to lead to a lot of positive things.”
More pointedly, and just as correctly, he would subsequently emphasise the double standards of his critics, who while happy to issue lectures on morality to comedians – or clowns, as they are also known – seem silent on American corporations operating in Saudi: “All of these sanctimonious idiots out there … who don’t really sincerely give a s**t. I will tell you, the Cheesecake Factory in Riyadh, it’s incredible. It’s right next to Pizza Hut and KFC, and if you want a pair of Timberlands, it’s across the street next to the Marriott, catty-corner to the f*****g Hilton.” He’s got a point.
As I was leaving the Andrew Schulz show, a scuffle broke out in the audience. Even that felt fitting. Comedy done right is an emotional business, no one knows what it will lead to. Which is why the Riyadh Comedy Festival is a brave step. Bravo, then, both to the people who organised it and the comedians who performed at it.
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