Jimmy Carr, Omid Djalili, Jack Whitehall and Jimeoin are to play the controversial Riyadh Comedy Festival next month.
The event – which features an array of top-flight international comedians – is being funded by the Saudi government, despite its appalling record on human rights and freedom of speech.
American comic Tim Dillon revealed that he was being paid $375,000 (£280,000) for his show, and claimed bigger names were receiving up to $1.6 million (£1.2million).
Carr is sharing a bill with disgraced Louis CK at the event, which runs from September 26 to October 9, whereas other comics are performing solo shows.
He, Djalili and Jimeoin are listed on the festival website while the official ‘Enjoy Saudi’ platform for entertainment events in Saudi Arabia announced Whitehall’s involvement last night.
Chortle contacted the agents of all the acts to ask if they had any qualms about going and their opinion on the Saudi government, among other questions, but none responded.
However Djalili tweeted this afternoon: ‘I’m at the Riyadh comedy festival in Saudi Arabia October 1st. Naturally a little nervous as the Saudis remove any image with nudity in your possession before coming into the country. Word is Louis CK is at the airport right now having his retinas removed.’
The Saudi regime has been accused of using sport and entertainment in recent years to whitewash its reputation, particularly following the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul at the behest of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The nation has one of the lowest ratings globally for free speech, with Reporters Without Borders ranking it 162nd out of 180 countries. And pressure group Freedom House notes: ‘Saudi Arabia’s absolute monarchy restricts almost all political rights and civil liberties.’
Earlier this year prominent journalist Turki Al-Jasser was executed, having been convicted on terrorism and treason charges after tweeting against the government.Last year, 330 people were executed in the kingdom.
Some of the US comedians taking part in the Riyadh Comedy Festival have justified their involvement, usually on the grounds that very few governments or sources of income are entirely clean.
Dillon was the most outspoken. He said on his video podcast: ‘Here’s the point, okay, I am doing this because they're paying me a large sum of money. They're paying me enough money to look the other way. Do you understand?
‘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 everyo—" Hey, hey, hey. Get over it. Get over it. So what? So what they have slaves?
‘Do I have issues with some of the policies towards women, towards the gays, towards the freedom of speech? Well, of course I do… But I believe in my own financial wellbeing and I always have by the way, and I think you better start believing in that.’
In another interview with Australian comic James McCann, Dillon explained: ‘What I'm saying is that if my tax dollars in the country that I live are going to be sent to another country to starve children [meaning Israel]. For anyone to then say, "You should refuse a gig in Saudi Arabia on a moral ground" is fucking insane.
‘I don't agree with the Saudi Arabian stance on homosexuality or women's rights or whatever, but I don't agree with a lot of what's going on.’
Jim Jefferies said he’d received ‘a little bit of grief online, nothing too much’ over his appearance – but added that boycotting Saudi over Khashoggi’s murder was ‘not a hill I’m going to die on’.
Speaking on Theo Von’s podcast, he said: ‘People have been going, "Oh, how dare you go over there after they killed a reporter." That was the big one. There's been a reporter who they killed.
‘You don't think our governments fucking bump people? Oh, I think Jeffrey Epstein was fucking bumped off. You know what I mean?
‘One reporter was killed by the government. Unfortunate, but not a fucking hill that I'm gonna die on. And I don't know the ins and outs of their government.’
And he also suggested some good could come from the event.
‘Basically we are freedom-of-speech machines being sent over there. They have not at one stage asked to see our material. Isn't this a sign that they're trying to do something different with themselves?,’ he said. ‘Us isolating them teaches us nothing and teaches them nothing.’
Chris Distefano said he was going to refuse to take part but changed his mind under pressure from his wife for financial reasons since they have just brought a house together.
American newsletter Humorism – written by journalist Seth Simons to highlight labour issues, inequality and extremism in comedy – has been collecting the full responses of those comedians who have commented so far.
The other comedians taking part are Andrew Schulz, Aziz Ansari, Andrew Santino & Bobby Lee, Bill Burr, Chris Tucker, Gabriel Iglesias, Hannibal Buress, Jessica Kirson, Jo Koy, Kevin Hart, Mark Normand, Maz Jobrani, Nimesh Patel, Pete Davidson, Russell Peters, Sam Morril, Sebastian Maniscalco, Tom Segura, Whitney Cummings, Zarna Garg, and Dave Chapelle.
The Riyadh Comedy Festival is part of the government’s Saudi Vision 2030 – a bid to lessen the state’s dependency on oil income, with tourism and entertainment among the sectors it wants to encourage. The Riyadh Comedy Festival is being promoted on the Visit Saudi website aimed at international visitors.
The festival was highlighted by Richard Osman and Marina Hyde on their podcast The Rest Is Entertainment this week – with the pair describing how it had so far flown under the radar, perhaps because the comedians did not want to draw attention to it.
Osman said the personal ethics were ‘not completely cut and dried’ adding: ‘An awful lot of people on this list are not hand-wringy. They're not the sort of people who said, "Oh, I won't do this. I won't do that." They are people who have always done anything for the highest price… if that's who you are, that's who you are.
‘I think that the money that's being paid for it and the potential audience size there is over there, you have to accept that you are not being paid for punters coming through the door… you are being paid by the Saudi government.
‘Again, no judgement. But if you're going over there, the reason you're being paid that much money to promote Saudi Arabia So you're there to do PR for the Saudi government. We can argue about whether that's a good thing to be taking money for or not, but I think that has to be the starting point.
‘Jim Jefferies’ point, and it's the point of lots of these people, is that if you live in any sort of commercial world, then you are doing a deal with the devil almost all the time. ‘
Taking Jefferies' ‘free speech machine’ argument, he suggested that the festival was ‘the perfect forum, the perfect set, the perfect place’ to preach that message.
‘Talk about that, not only on stage, but talk about that with your handlers,’ he said. ‘Talk about that with the people who are taking you to your car and then taking you to the prescribed bar. Just talk to them.
‘If you are a free speech machine, this is amazing. You're a machine. This is perfect. No better way to promote free speech. ‘
Hyde said: ‘I'm not a huge fan of comedians taking paid-for gigs from [any] governments’, and later asked: ‘Is comedy the front line of the fight for liberty. Or is it full of mercenaries, or is it somewhere in between?
Osman said: ‘It’s interestingly both those things. Yeah, I think it's definitely full of mercenaries, of course it is, there isn't a branch of showbusiness that isn’t.
‘But it is full of people who are dancing on the tightrope of what you're allowed to say. You know, either, either you're charming and funny and you're saying something unusual, or trying to push an envelope. So it's understandable that culturally, this is a group of people who believe their opinions perhaps to have some impact and some importance.
‘There are people on this bill who I think are doing it for the right reasons. They're all doing it for money, of course they are. But there are people who genuinely believe that going to Saudi Arabia, that engaging in Saudi culture… there are strong arguments.’
The most successful comedian Saudi produced, Fahad Albutairi, disappeared from public view six years ago when he was forcibly returned from Jordan to Saudi and placed under arrest, due to his ex-wife Loujain al-Hathloul's activities as a women's rights activist.
