Mina Liccione and Ali Al Sayed can be considered Dubai’s comedy power couple, having co-founded the comedy institute Dubomedy and being returning performers for the annual Dubai Comedy Festival that kicks off on May 13 in time for Eid celebrations.
However, when they started in the business of entertaining people in the UAE back in 2008, the scene was vastly different from what it is today.
Talking to Gulf News in 2012, Liccione said: “Four years ago people were scared to give us a gig thinking that our humour won’t be clean and it might be a mock satire so it took us 13 months to fix the venue for our first show. But we came a long way since then. For the first performing arts festival in 2010, we got around 200 performers and it has been growing since then.”
From hologram concerts to comedy events and a Salman Khan blockbuster, Eid gets festive
1 of 11 Abdel Halim Hafez hologram concert: If you missed the hologram concert featuring Umm Kulthum, then here’s your chance to make things right. Dubai Opera will be hosting the first hologram event of the late celebrated Egyptian singer Abdel Halim Hafez. The event, which will be staged on May 13 and 14 in time for Eid, promises to be a speculator 90-minute show that will feature some of the singer’s most popular songs. Hailed as one of the greatest Egyptian musicians, along with Umm Kulthum, Mohamed Abdel Wahab, Mohamed Fawzi and Shadia, Hafez was a prolific singer and actor whose music and films were adored by fans across the region and beyond. Audiences at the hologram event will be able to watch Hafez on stage, 43 years after his passing, thanks to the use of hologram technology and artificial intelligence to create a high-resolution 3D model that matches the artist�
Revealed: 10 things to do this upcoming Eid break in the UAE
0 Comments
Get daily business news from the region delivered straight to your inbox
I agree to the terms and conditions
SIGN UP
Revealed: 10 things to do this upcoming Eid break in the UAE
This coming Eid break, take some time to explore all that the UAE has to offer with your friends and family
by Iman Hussain
1. Visit a Ramadan night market
Until Friday, May 14, you can visit Dragon Mart in Dubai for a Ramadan market experience. From clothes and home décor to food stalls, you can spend your time in this transformed car park and shop extensively. Other Eid night markets include Dar al Hai souq in the Mall of the Emirates, which is open until May 15.
Where: Various locations across the city
The Dubai Comedy Festival is returning to the city from May 13 to 22 for ten days that promises to be filled with belly-aching fun. The festival will take place at various locations across Dubai and will include stand-up sets to variety shows, activations and plenty more. It will showcase some fantastic local and global comedians, with shows in several different languages. The line-up for this year’s show has not yet been revealed but we’ll be sure to tell you when it does.
Dubai Comedy Festival, various locations across Dubai, May 13 to 22. dubaicomedyfest.ae
Long Read: Laughter, the best medicine?
(Reuters file)
‘Laughing brings up the oxygen levels’
Earlier this month, British actress Helen McCrory passed away at 52. Cancer (not Covid) got to her. Sometime later, her devastated husband (actor) Damian Lewis penned a tribute to her in The Sunday Times; he started out with, “As I sit down to write this, I can hear Helen shouting from the bed, ‘Keep it short, Damian, it’s not about you’.” As he went on to add how she’d been “utterly heroic in her illness”, the first attribute he accorded her was “funny”, before listing out “generous, brave, uncomplaining, constantly reminding us all of how lucky we’ve been, how blessed we are”. “[She] Made them [everyone around her] laugh, always. There were few funnier people she was funny as hell.” Cancer ravaged her, but her funny bones didn’t creak: she had her sense of humour intact till the very end. “Only a couple of weeks ago she said to us [Damian and the