“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour,” declared Charles Dickens in his novel A Christmas Carol.
Good humour not only brings laughter, it also cools down high temperatures. This is the right time to have some good comedy to laugh off the hot and humid weather in Qatar.
The on-going Doha Comedy Festival is an attractive part of the Summer in Qatar campaign launched by Qatar National Tourism Council (QNTC). Being the most exciting side of the campaign, the festival promises to bring top international comedians to Qatar this summer as the multicultural audience gets a chance to taste highest quality of comedy.
The next event of the festival promises to bring not only huge quantity of laughter but also a rich variety comedy. Omid Djalili, Nemr Abou Nassar and Hamad al-Amari – the three talented stand-up comedians with diverse backgrounds – are all set to make the Doha audience cachinnate at Qatar National Convention Centre’s Hall 9 on August 15.
According to the organisers, the comedy show will start at 8pm and will continue till 11pm. The three comedy stars will finish off the laughter season – Doha Comedy Festival – that earlier saw thrilling performances by Zakir Khan, an Indian stand-up comedian, and Trevor Noah, a celebrated South African comedian.
Omid Djalili is an English stand-up comedian, actor, television producer, voice actor and writer.
Born to Iranian parents, Omid’s first significant success of in his stand-up comedy career was at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1995 with Short, Fat Kebab Shop Owner’s Son, followed by The Arab and the Jew with Jewish comedian Ivor Dembina in 1996.
He has performed in numerous countries, including Australia, Ireland, Sweden, Belgium, Canada and the United States, where he had his own HBO Special and did 22 episodes of the NBC sitcom Whoopi with Whoopi Goldberg.
He did his part for Comic Relief after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami and also in 2005 he appeared on the British TV show Top Gear as a celebrity driver. The same year he broke Edinburgh Festival box office records with over 16,500 ticket sales.
In 2006, Sky Television picked him to be the face of their Saturday night film premières, and he also announced a new tour of the UK called ‘No Agenda’, from January 2007 until March 2007, covering 23 different dates. The No Agenda tour DVD was released in late 2007.
On 18 March 2007, he was voted by the British public as the 60th best stand-up comedian in a Channel 4 programme The 100 Greatest Stand-Ups. On 26 October 2007, he guest-presented the BBC political quiz show Have I Got News for You. The Omid Djalili Show started on BBC1 on 17 November 2007. The series was a mix of sketches and stand-up material. A second series was recorded in late 2008 and began broadcast on BBC 1 on 20 April 2009. He performed on We Are Most Amused on ITV1 to mark Prince Charles’s 60th birthday in 2008.
Nemr Abou Nassar is a Lebanese-American stand-up comic who now performs globally using only his first name, Nemr. He has always performed in English, and now performs regularly in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East.
On October 7, 2017 Nemr premiered his brand new hour comedy special, No Bombing in Beirut, across the United States on Showtime, and across Canada on CraveTV and The Movie Network. It is currently available on demand and streaming as well as regular play across these networks.
Filmed in both Beirut and Los Angeles, No Bombing in Beirut was made to show that we are much more similar than we have been led to believe. Nemr believed that if you showed two crowds on opposite sides of the planet laughing together at the same material, and as he cut back and forth between the two, that if it felt like one show, there would be no better proof that we have so much more in common.
Nemr has written and performed seven full feature shows, the latest of which was a world tour that took Nemr to many major US cities, Europe, and across the Middle East.
Hamad al-Amari is a Qatari-Irish stand-up comedian. His diverse background is a rare sight in this region. Having grown up in Qatar, Southern Ireland and the US, he has had unusual exposure to many experiences and diversity, which have helped form his identity and approach to comedy.
Hamad al-Amari
