The existence of a Saudi Arabia comedy festival has been on the periphery of my mind for a few weeks, but there's no more ignoring it. It's finally here. The Riyadh Comedy Festival kicks off on Friday and runs for two weeks, and judging by the lineup, many famous comedians have no qualms about cashing that check and ignoring the human rights abuses.
The names involved are scattered across a range from "not surprising at all" to "wait, really?" There's a contingent of people you knew weren't going to say no: Jeff Ross, Kevin Hart, Chris Tucker, Russell Peters, Sebastian Maniscalco. They might as well rename this shit the Back Taxes Tour. The co-headliner combo of Louis C.K. and Jimmy Carr on Oct. 5 is to be expected. Then you get to names like Bill Burr, Pete Davidson, Aziz Ansari, Mo Amer ... man, they must be getting a lot of money.
And what might that number be? Tim Dillon, a comedian who was scheduled to perform in Riyadh but was nixed for making a joke about slavery in Saudi Arabia on his podcast, claimed he stood to make $375,000 off doing one show there. Earlier this month, when he was defending his decision, he said that comedians in a higher "bracket" were being paid around $1.6 million each, and lower-tier talent was getting $150,000. "They're paying me enough money to look the other way," Dillon said. "Do you understand?"
Pete Davidson's dad, Scott, was a firefighter who died in World Trade Centre during 9/11.
I assume the audience will be nearly all expats and most of the jokes will be about American politics and the democrats/liberals. I expect many people will be annoyed by the American-centric jokes.
I don't think so. Also - I assume Saudis will stay away out of an abundance of caution. I could be wrong and maybe a comedian (or more than one) will make jokes about The Kingdom. If so - you sure don't want to be a Saudi citizen in that room.
Do the royals attend these things? Who is this even for? Just to release public statements that whoever did a show there?
This is surely just a PR thing. In my mind's eye I envision some young Saudi PR guy who lived in the US or maybe the UK. He loves English language standup and he pitched his crazy Standup Saudi idea to his boss with no hope that his boss would say yes. But to his amazement - his boss said "Great idea!" Sadly, it was renamed. Still - the young guy gets to see them live and gets to meet them too. And they hang out together but that's when they meet a few mysterious hotties at the bar in the Four Seasons Hotel Riyadh. The hotties tell them about the myth-not-a-myth of the Stone of Arabia and then—
Holy shit. I started writing a comedy called Standup Saudi.
It's probably to drum up international tourism, like the WWE events in Riyadh.
American expats in Saudi Arabia, a demographic I will never understand.