Dubai Comedy Workshops:

Day 3:
Mohammed and Bilal laugh Dubai

Day 1:
The flight to Dubai wasn’t bad at all except for the fact that the landing was the worst I have ever experienced. I hop into a cab that does not know any english and try to explain to him where my hotel is. I got very frustrated and then Bilal took over and talked to the taxi driver in some kind of weird accent.

I arrived to the workshop on time and met with some of the local comedians here in Dubai. Surprisingly, they have a good number of comedians in the country. The workshop started with everyone introducing themselves and then some ice breaking activities related to improvisation.

I sat in a group of five and each member of the group performed 3 minutes of his material and got feedback from the others. It was very effective to get suggestions and advice from other comedians especially ones from the region. I made some changes to my material based on the feedback I got from my group.

After that, we had a healthy snack break that included coke and potato
chips. And then we watched some videos and tried to analyze what kind of
comedy is it. Also, I learned briefly about sketches and what it takes to write one. We did not go in specifically into sketches but hopefully by the end of the trip I will know more.

Days in Jordan during “Amman Stand-Up Comedy Festival” :

Day 1:

I got to the Airport 1 hour before my audition. I didn’t have enough time to go to the hotel and then go to the audition, so I told the taxi to take me straight to the Hussain Cultural Center where the auditions were taking place. The taxi driver was surprised that I wanted to go there, he asked me if I wanted to go to a Disco or go for a drink. I told him that I do not do any of these things; he said “then why are you in Jordan?”. Anyways, I arrived at the venue on time and met with Dean Obedallah. There were 11 comedians performing for the audition. All of them were from Jordan except for Bilal and I. We all performed for three minutes and I made it through as one of the winners.

Day 2:
There was a workshop on stand-up comedy by Dean Obedallah and Aron Kader. I learned about the formal process of writing a joke in a stand-up comedy act. They both emphasized on the importance of having a set up and a punchline for the joke. And then I got the chance to do a three minutes of stand-up comedy and get feed back from them.

I met a local comedian called Hamza who organized an open mic in one of the coffee shops downtown Amman. It was very interesting, I had a great time performing in such an informal event because it was very flexible and there was not any time limit. Except for the fact that everyone was smoking a lot which was going to kill me, it was tons of fun.

Day 3:
I attended the business comedy workshop by Joe the manager of Gabriel Iglasias. It was basically a discussion on how to find an agent and deal with your manager. I learned about what agents are looking for in a comedian especially in this region. He mentioned that the most important thing in a comedian is his fan base, which gives an indication to the agent on how successful the comedian can be. I also met Gabriel Iglasias and Edwin San Juan after the workshop. Edwin expressed to me his fear about his first time being in the Middle East, I told him just do not look people in the eye! but then I told him I was joking.

Later on I met Ibrahim Khayrat, a saudi comedian and a producer at Luxury Events. We were both starving and decided to go to Maka mall for lunch, but that did not work for some reason that I can’t remember. Then we decided to go to an Indian restaurant and Ibrahim ordered food for seven people when we were just two.

I was at the show venue before an hour of the kick off. I sat at the back stage with the other comedians, and for some reason a couple of them were very nervous because it was their first time performing in the region. I tried to stay cool, calm and collected for the show. When I went on stage and I announced that I am from Qatar the crowed went crazy because they were all happy that Qatar won the 2022 world cup bid. I said some local jokes about Jordan which got a lot of laughs. I also made some mum and dad jokes which they loved. The audience was very interactive, I loved them. After the show we stayed for at least one hour taking photos with fans and signing autographs. I met a lot of cool people and told them to join my Facebook fan page. At the end, I had a short interview with MBC which I hope goes on air very soon.

About Mohammed
Hi, my name is Mohammed Fahad Kamal. I am a 21 year old Qatari that likes to stand and tell jokes at the same time. I currently study in Carnegie Mellon University, majoring in Business Administration. I know many people who have a passion for something; some like singing, others like helping the poor. I like making people laugh, and I do it because I feel that I can be myself on stage and talk about topics that come across my mind.

I come up with my material from the Qatari culture and people’s behaviors in this society. I started two years ago when I was a freshman at university. I always used to stand in front of my class mates and make fun of our professors and imitate them.

I got a lot of attention and support from everyone around me and started doing stand up in different events in university. Here I am today competing for the open mic stand up competition and hopeful that I will perform to the best of my ability.