Q&A with Hasan Al-Habib

You were studying for a PhD at Cambridge while pursuing comedy. At what point did you realise your life was becoming aggressively niche?

Pursuing comedy whilst studying at Cambridge is quite a lot more common than you might think.

None of Monty Python have a PhD in oncology, as far as I know, but - unlike them - I’m fortunate enough to have something to fall back on.

Your material often explores cultural misunderstandings and awkwardness. Do you enjoy making audiences slightly uncomfortable before making them laugh?

I enjoy making hundreds of people absolutely silent in anticipation of a punchline. Of course, the fear is they’ll be silent after too, but when it comes off, you feel real satisfaction. 

That silence (before) is the audience telling you as a performer: “we need you to tell us what happens next”. 

Your accent work and impressions get mentioned a lot in reviews. Is mimicking people something you’ve always done naturally?

Probably. At school, people thought I might be american because my parents spoke arabic at home, so if I heard english being spoken typically it was coming out of Bugs Bunny’s mouth. 

I didn’t help things by walking around chomping a carrot and calling my teachers “doc”.

As a practising Muslim comic, do audiences sometimes make assumptions about what your comedy will be like before they see you?

You’d need to ask them. But if people have seen me before the show, it’s usually on instagram or on BBC 2’s Pilgrimage, and I think both give a good idea of what to expect.

Nabil Abdulrashid, before I went on that show, gave me some crucial advice: “be yourself, because the audience can tell when you’re not”. 

What’s the most “Middle Eastern parent” thing your mum has ever said to you?

“If something is fun, don’t do it. Drugs, alcohol, hobbies, avoid them all”. 

Hasan Al-Habib: Stuck in the Middle (East) With You is at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from the 5^th – 3-th August (not 18^th). For more information visit https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/hasan-al-habib-stuck-in-the-middle-east-with-you