Saudi Arabia finds its funny bone with stand-up comedy

Saudi comedian Nawaf Al Qahtani performs during the Stand-up Comedy Festival at the Riyadh's King Fahd Cultural Centre.

Saudis took the stage one by one to poke fun at the world - and themselves - introducing a hissing, cackling audience to an art form widely unknown in the kingdom: stand-up comedy.
Chuckles and squeals ran through the crowd at a rare amateur comedy festival last week in the capital Riyadh, organised by the official General Entertainment Authority, the main engine of social reforms sweeping the kingdom.
The authority is boosting entertainment options like never before, from a Comic-Con festival to concerts by female musicians,introducing many Saudis to a novel concept - having fun in public.
"I am a jobless dentist," 26-year-old Battar Al Battar said in a slow, deadpan delivery on stage to a smiling audience. "My prayers have been answered. I see lots of braces in this crowd."
Next up was a short, corpulent man, equally deadpan as he took on the skewed power relations between the sexes.
"I called my fiancee to say: 'Listen, I am the man. If I eat dust, you eat dust'.
"She hung up. A week passed by. I heard nothing.
"In a panic I texted her: 'I am not the man! Take me back!'"
Men in the audience - as well as women sitting across the aisle - erupted in laughter.
The festival would hardly be unusual if it weren't in Saudi Arabia.
"The common perception is that Saudis don't have a funny bone," Yaser Bakr, a festival jury member and founder of the kingdom's first comedy club, said.
"Saudis love to laugh. Numbers don't lie," he said, scrolling through a list of Saudi comedy videos on his mobile's YouTube app, each with hundreds of thousands of views.
The venue for the five-day festival, Riyadh's King Fahd Cultural Centre, was like a bubble of laughing gas over the course of the performances. The festival, a talent-hunt of sorts for Saudi Arabia's own version of "Seinfeld", was a rare attempt to introduce stand-up comedy to the masses.
"Many people think comedy is only sex jokes. We are trying to change that," festival director Jubran Al Jubran said. "Saudi Arabia needs to cultivate this art. Comedy has a purifying effect, it cleanses the soul. It's a relief to laugh about our own problems."

• Saudi Arabia