'They're paying me enough to look the other way': How the likes of Jimmy Carr and Jack Whitehall are pocketing huge sums to appear at a comedy festival in Saudi Arabia
Two burglars bump into each other on the street in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital city.
They shake hands, and one man notices that, all the way around the wrist of his friend’s right arm, there is an ugly row of stitches.
He says, ‘I see you won your appeal, then?’
You have to wonder how many times that gag like that has been repeated at the Riyadh comedy festival, which started last Friday. Anyone who dares try it is likely to be met by muted, awkward laughter... but nothing like the resounding silence that has greeted the announcement of the line-up for the event.
British stand-up comedians including Jimmy Carr and Jack Whitehall, both regulars on TV panel shows, will be appearing, alongside dozens of names from the US. One US comedian, Tim Dillon, bragged he is being paid $375,000 (£278,000) for his appearance, and claimed some of his rivals were pocketing up to $1.6million (£1.16million).
Among the most famous of the State-side stand-ups are six-time Emmy winner Louis CK, plus Dave Chapelle and Kevin Hart. Other Brits on the roster include Omid Djalili and Jimeoin.
It’s fair to say few of those appearing are renowned for their right-on politics. Carr was forced to issue an apology after using a tax avoidance scheme to ‘shelter’ more than £3million from the Inland Revenue in 2012. Louis CK has been accused of sexual misconduct by at least five women, who claim he exposed himself to them.
Chapelle is notorious for his gleeful mockery of ‘transgender rights’ and Hart was blackmailed after he was filmed having drug-fuelled sex with a porn actress in Las Vegas while his wife was pregnant with their first child.
They can hardly be accused of hypocrisy in going to Riyadh, where both income tax and women’s rights are non-existent. For some of those comedians, you might think Saudi Arabia is their natural environment.
British stand-up comedians including Jimmy Carr will be appearing alongside dozens of names from the US at the Riyadh comedy festival
But the comedy scene as a whole, especially in the UK, is rife with virtue-signallers. Tune in to The News Quiz on Radio 4 or any topical sketch show and you’ll be carpet-bombed with Left-wing sloganeering dressed up as jokes.
Saudi Arabia has one of the worst records for human rights in the world. You might expect fellow comics – especially ones who didn’t even get an invitation they could ostentatiously turn down – to be loudly denouncing the festival.
Those who do attend could be shocked by restrictions on what they can say. The pressure group Freedom House said: ‘Saudi Arabia’s absolute monarchy restricts almost all political rights and civil liberties.’ Reporters Without Borders ranks the nation’s record on freedom of speech at 162nd out of 180 countries.
Any references to religion or politics would be very ill-advised – one blogger named Raif Badawi was sentenced to 1,000 lashes and served 10 years in prison for ‘insulting Islam through electronic channels’ and setting up an opposition website. He was released in 2022 but is still forbidden to leave the country and join his family abroad.
Torture in prison is commonplace. But Badawi’s punishment was light compared to the mass executions. In March 2022 Saudi authorities killed 81 men in a single day, and last year 330 people were executed.
Notoriously, the Saudi government sanctioned the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. The writer, who had fled the country a year earlier, entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to collect documents and was assassinated in the building. His body was dismembered.
A CIA investigation found the Saudi ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the murder himself.
How can a comedian tell jokes in a country where satire is potentially punishable by death? And how can anyone whose livelihood depends on free speech justify performing at the Crown Prince’s command?
Quite easily, if you believe Tim Dillon. ‘I am doing this,’ he said, ‘because they’re paying me a large sum of money – enough money to look the other way.
‘A lot of people are doing it. They [the Saudis] bought comedy. So what? Listen, what’s your problem? “Well, they have slaves and they kill everyone...” Hey, get over it. Do I have issues with some of the policies towards women, towards the gays? Well, of course I do... But I believe in my own financial well-being and I always have.’
Promotional poster for Jack Whitehall's appearance at the festival in Saudi Arabia
Those self-serving weasel words went almost without notice this month. Yet comedians who are apparently in tacit support of the Riyadh charade would doubtless be united in condemnation if any entertainer dared play a gig in Tel Aviv. Some have even directed their self-righteous anger at audience members for failing to join in criticism of Israel.
During a performance last year at the Soho Theatre, comic Paul Currie brandished a Palestinian flag and then turned on a man who refused to join in a standing ovation. The man claimed later: ‘He immediately said, “Get out of my show”. Audience members were shouting “Get out” and “Free Palestine”.’
The man and his companion left: ‘We did not feel safe to continue. We were not that far away from the exit door, we were keeping our heads down. We felt threatened and marginalised.’
Yet Jewish humour has been a mainstay of stand-up routines since the music hall days, on both sides of the Atlantic. Comedians from Sid Caesar to Mel Brooks, Groucho Marx to Joan Rivers made a career of it. In 1978, Time magazine estimated 80 per cent of America’s top comics were Jewish.
US comedian Tim Dillon bragged he is being paid $375,000 (£278,000) for his appearance, and claimed some of his rivals were pocketing up to $1.6million
Motormouth gag merchant Jackie Mason, who died in 2021, was adored for his Jewish jokes, and was never afraid to laugh about the endless Arab-Israeli crises. In 1991, when Israel came under bombardment during the Gulf War, he quipped the missiles were the reason he loved eating out in Tel Aviv – ‘Nobody paid the check in a restaurant for nine weeks. They just sat there, waiting for the sirens, so they could run.’
This was Mason’s take on allegations of corruption against Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu: ‘Everyone wants Bibi to give the West Bank back to the Palestinians. Sure, he wants to give it back but he can’t... it’s in his wife’s name.’
Imagine the outrage among right-on comedians if a stand-up dared do material like that in Britain today.
There is no Arab equivalent of Jackie Mason. Just try to think of one Saudi stand-up. Chances are high that you can’t. And that’s hardly surprising, because live comedy shows didn’t start happening in the kingdom until 2009. The first gig in Riyadh was headlined by 24-year-old Fahad Albutairi, who had been making a name for himself in the States.
Fahad filmed his act and posted it on YouTube, under the banner La Yekthar, which, roughly translated, means ‘stick a sock in it’. Aptly, the most popular part of the show featured heckling from a chain-smoking alligator sock-puppet.
‘If you want this channel to be a success,’ the puppet taunted him, ‘get some hot chicks.’ Even without the ‘hot chicks’, Fahad has nearly a million followers.
As they fill their pockets with Saudi petro-dollars, Jimmy Carr and company would be well advised to stick to sock-puppets.
