Sami Abu Wardeh on swapping clowning for stand-up: ‘When you’re seeing a live-streamed genocide, it would be incongruous’
The genocide in Gaza has prompted Sami Abu Wardeh to fundamentally change the way he performs, transitioning from clowning to stand-up. The Palestinian comedian tells Murray Robertson how that shift has challenged him as he explores the concept of hate in his new show
When Sami Abu Wardeh brought his debut solo clown show Bedu to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2022, his Palestinian identity was, as he puts it, ‘very lightly sprinkled across it’. Now, he says he can no longer separate his comedy from the world around him. ‘I’ve had to recalibrate how I approach my comedy because we live in a new world order,’ he says, referring to the war in Gaza. ‘I realised quite quickly after it started that I can’t go on stage and continue to do silly character clowning. When you’re seeing a live-streamed genocide, it would be incongruous.’
In his new stand-up show Sami Abu Wardeh Hates You, he asks audiences to consider who society permits us to detest and why. ‘It’s an exploration of hate: what it means to hate today, the value of hate politically, specifically for people who would call themselves left-leaning or left wing. I think it’s become a taboo in our circles while the world is being taken over by hateful people.’
The spark came from ‘Hatred Has Become A Political Taboo’, an essay by the late anthropologist David Graeber. ‘He makes this argument that throughout the whole of recorded human history, hate was a very normal part of society. It was very bog-standard to hate the people who ruled over you.’ Graeber opens his essay by arguing that, since the end of the 20th century, hate ‘is the one emotion that is considered intrinsically illegitimate’.
Abu Wardeh believes we are now living with the consequences of that. The hour also draws heavily on his own experiences, particularly over the past two-and-a-half years. ‘It’s a lot of stories about my childhood, stories about performing comedy, what it’s like to have been performing comedy since Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and what it’s like to be the only professional Palestinian comedian based permanently in the UK.’ It’s a position he describes as ‘quite isolating’.
The biggest change has been learning to perform as himself rather than hiding behind characters, and he describes his transition to stand-up as ‘a really good challenge’. He recalls how a joke he told about Benjamin Netanyahu a few years ago provoked a strong negative reaction from some audience members, prompting him to turn on his crowd. Now, he feels he can revisit that moment from a different perspective. ‘I can now go on stage and talk about the story back then. That actually is a lot more fun because it gives everyone in the room distance from that thing that happened when I was on stage two years ago.’
He’s also developed a healthier relationship with the Fringe itself. ‘I’m learning how to have fun while putting on a show,’ he smiles. ‘That was the thing I struggled with the most. I’m at the biggest English-language arts festival in the world: have some fun!’
Sami Abu Wardeh Hates You, Pleasance Courtyard, 5–30 August, 10pm.