One for the Road

Hisham Fageeh on his hit video No Woman No Drive and doing stand-up in Saudi Arabia.

If there is such a thing as comic timing,then Hisham Fageeh knows exactly when to tell a joke,and how. Almost two years ago,the 26-year-old Saudi Arabian stand-up comic was humming Bob Marleys No woman no cry in his bathroom in New York City. He began tweaking the lyrics to,No woman no drive…say I remember when you used to sit in the family car,but backseat?. This melodic spoof on Saudi Arabias ban on driving for women stayed in his head. A joke is never too funny till the time is ripe for it, he tells us over the phone from his home in Riyadh. Fageeh produced the video No Woman No Drive 10 months ago,with Alaa Wardi,an a cappella musician,and comic Fahad al-Butairi but still did not release it. When Saudi women vowed to take to the wheels on October 26,Fageeh finally found the videos release date.

As 60 Saudi women took to the road,No Woman No Drive took to the cyberspace,unleashing millions of likes,shares,comments,and yes,laughs. At last count,it had close to 8.5 million hits on YouTube.

In the video,Fageeh mimics Marley and subtly pokes fun at a clerics claim that driving damages womens ovaries. Ova and ovaries so safe and well,so you can make lots and lots of babies, he croons.

Fageeh found his calling as a stand-up comic in the US,where he arrived as a 15-year-old high school student in 2002. His initial experience there,though,was anything but funny. I lived in New Smyrna Beach,a rather racist town in south Florida. It was a year after 9/11,and stupid kids there would direct their pain and anger at me. Humour soon cheered him up,though. I watched a lot of African-American comic David Chapelle,who does racist commentary in his jokes,and got inspired, he says.

Fageeh went on to study religion and Middle Eastern studies at Florida State University,after which he enrolled for a postgraduation in Middle Eastern Studies at Columbia University. NYCs theatre culture helped Fageeh discover his comic self. Since NYC has several open-mic events,I began participating in them, he says.

Longing to do comedy in Arabic,he started his YouTube channel,Hishamcomedy,in 2011. His first clip,about a US-based,anti-American Saudi bigot,got 20 hits,today his channel has 55,886 subscribers.

In August,Fageeh returned to Riyadh and joined comedy production company Telfaz11. Stand-up comedy,he says,is booming in Saudi Arabia. Since Saudi Arabia has no room for dissent,is satire,especially online,a safer way to vent opinion? Satire has been happening for long,including in democracies,so it has nothing to do with our political system, says Fageeh. Does he think women should drive? My personal views dont matter. I want to make people laugh.

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