Egypt’s “First” Comedy Rumble

“Stand-up Comedy is this booming industry in the Middle East” said Ahmed Ahmed in the opening act of the Cairo Comedy Rumble, held yesterday at the CICC. The show featured 4 American and 4 Egyptian stand-up comedians and was done at two different timings on the same day.

First on the list of Egyptians was Sherif 3azab. Sherif is an Egyptian living in Saudi Arabia and it was his first time here in Egypt. This guy was an unfortunate mishap to the show. His old jokes and long pauses between ones did not help at all. His jokes about the trouble he goes through when travelling abroad due to working for the Saudi Bin Laden Group and Egyptian Taxi drivers’ tendency to charge Gulf passengers more than the fare were way out of time. I mean how old are these jokes man, we’ve only heard them like a million times before.

Second in line was Alexandrian comic Mo3taz 3attallah. The thing with this guy is that he simply is not funny. I don’t get his humor despite being able to relate to the stuff he talks about. His pace is slow all the time and he’s way too laid back even when he’s delivering the punch line. He is overtly deadpan! Another problem with his act was that it was the same material he did at Live Night 5 in Sa2yet El-Sawy and which has been on youtube for quite sometime now.

Third was NogoomFM and Moga Comedy’s Akram 7osny (Sayed Abou 7afiza). This guy definitely has a sense of humor and for a first timer, he did a good job. Akram talked about bureaucracy, our lack of creation and the tendency to just copy others. I honestly think that if this guy polishes his act a little bit, he could have a bright future in Stand-up.

The next and final guy on the list of locals was George 3azmy. George 3azmy is a talented stand-up with a great sense of humor. To be honest, one of the reasons I went to this gig was to see this guy perform but I was badly disappointed by his performance. George made the same mistake as Mo3taz 3attallah did, he repeated the same material that has been on youtube. And the only new part in his act was a bit which he probably stolen off Pablo Francisco’s "movie previews guy" impression except this time, it was about famous TV ads commentary guy, Tarek Nour and how his day-to-day life would be like. Funny but lacking on the creativity part.

Now, the American part of the mob was made up of Ted Alexandro, Angelo Tsarouchas, Ahmed Ahmed and Maz Jobrani. Ahmed and Maz were just awesome, these guys know what they are doing and being their second or third time in Egypt, they seem to have gotten a good understanding of the sense of humor. Ted Alexandro was good, just not great although if you’re enjoy the style of comedians like Jimmy Carr, you’re going to love this guy. Finally, it was Greek-American Angelo Tsarouchas. This guy simply killed it (di 7aga kwayessa). He struck gold, specially with his fat-guy jokes and his poking fun of his Greek heritage.

The show will carry on today with one more gig at the Bibliotheca Alexandria in Alexandria with the same line-up except for Akram 7osny who’s not scheduled to appear there.