TECHNIQUE: In his last performance in Doha, much of Maz's humour came off impromptu talks with the audience or by simply expanding on an idea or an issue, a technique comics refer to as “riffing.”
By Our Correspondent
Top stand-up comics seem to be hell-bent in ensuring Doha laughs its way out of 2014.
While Lebanese King of Comedy Nemr Abou Nassar is set to delight the audience at Qatar National Convention Centre on December 19 with his new show Uninterrupted Funny Observations, ace Iranian-American comic Maz Jobrani returns to the city to unleash another laugh riot tomorrow (Saturday) at Grand Hyatt Doha.
Jobrani, the face of Middle Eastern humour in the West can effortlessly crack funnies on everything from racial profiling and Islamophobia to being Iranian or being a Muslim in the post-9/11 world. His last show in Doha was in March, where he entertained a crowd of around 1,000 at La Cigale Hotel.
Hours before that show, in his interview to Community, Jobrani had said, “With comedy, you talk about what’s on your mind. Comedy is like therapy. The more you do it, the more breakthroughs you have about yourself. After 15 years of doing comedy, the person that’s on-stage becomes closer to the person off-stage. Without even knowing it, you are writing off-stage.”
Born in Tehran, Jobrani grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area after his parents moved to the US soon after the Iranian Revolution. He was six and his first shot at acting — playing a tree in a school play — planted the acting bug in his head. At 12, he developed a passion for acting in plays. Around the same time, he started watching stand-up comedy, and began idolising Eddie Murphy.
After doing Political Science and signing up for a PhD at the UCLA so that he becomes a professor, Jobrani dropped out to embrace what he realised he loves doing most — acting and comedy. Jobrani has starred in films like Friday After Next, 13 Going on 30, and The Interpreter, and TV shows like Knights of Prosperity and Life on a Stick.
Jobrani’s big break came with the Axis of Evil, a rollicking comedy tour that he did with Arab-American stand-up comics like Egyptian-American Ahmed Ahmed and Palestinian-American Aron Kader. Like rockstars on a wild run, the trio pulled off 27 shows in 30 days across half a dozen countries in the Middle East, including performing in front of the King of Jordan.
The Axis of Evil Comedy Central Special premiered in 2007 as the first American TV show with an all Middle Eastern-American cast. Jobrani, since, has come to be known as one of the most popular comic voices to satire on Middle Easterners being misunderstood in the West.
Much of his humour came off impromptu talks with the audience or by simply expanding on an idea or an issue, a technique comics refer to as “riffing.”
In the March show in Doha, Jobrani made funny remarks such as: “Parking in Doha is basically driving for two hours and then coming back to the same place,” and, “Qatar, you are going to win the World Cup because every other team will melt!”
Catch him live tomorrow at 8pm. Tickets are priced at QR150 and are available at the Concierge Desk at Grand Hyatt Doha.