The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents
Palestine Comedy Club
Alaa Aliabdallah / Charlotte Knowles
At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2026
Country
Palestine, United Kingdom
Language
Arabic, English
Running Time
90
minutes
Year of Release
2024
About The Film
Six Palestinian stand-up comedians write and tour a stand-up comedy show exploring the unlikely, often dark humour that surrounds the complexity of Palestinian identity. What starts as a blending of comic traditions to encourage honest and open reflections through the shared enjoyment of laughter becomes an existential imperative to survival and sharing common humanity.
In Palestine, there are no comedy clubs or traditions of stand-up comedy. The country is divided by walls, fences, and checkpoints, creating cultural and quality-of-life disparities between towns. Consequently, developing a comedy show that can resonate with vastly different audiences across these divides poses a significant challenge. Nonetheless, comedians Alaa, Hanna, Diana, Khalil, Ebaa, from Occupied Haifa, Ramallah, Jenin, Hebron, and the Golan Heights along with their British director, Sam, manage to navigate checkpoints and borders to perform in theatres across Palestine and Israel. Word of their performances spreads internationally, leading to an invitation to London for a series of gigs, tragically scheduled to commence in October 2023, just as the Genocide on Gaza breaks out.
‘Palestine Comedy Club’ serves as an exploration of comedy and the power of laughter to unite, liberate, challenge and heal. Initially, we witness how the comedians blend comic traditions from the Western world with those rooted in Arab cultures to employ new tools for expression and create a fresh audience experience. This includes highlighting differences between 'Westbankers' and '48ers', encouraging open and honest reflections, and bridging differing generational viewpoints through the shared enjoyment of laughter. However, as Gaza faces relentless attacks, the mission to connect audiences through laughter and humanity becomes an existential imperative.
Director: Alaa Aliabdallah
Producer: Charlotte Knowles
Executive Producer: Carri Twigg, Esther Van Messel, Mikail Chowdhury, Farzana Rahman, Maryam Pasha
Cinematographer: Alaa Aliabdallah
Editor: Libby Knowles
Composer: Khalil Al Batran, Faris Amin
About The Artist(s)
Director’s profile:
Regash (Alaa Aliabdallah) has worked as a photographer and filmmaker with many artists and organisations such as the Palestinian Circus School, Freedom Theatre, Stereo48 Dance Company, and Sarreyet Ramallah. Regash is an internationally recognised portrait and street photographer, with an online audience of over 20,000 people. He produces photography for international fashion brands and magazines. Palestine Comedy Club is Regash’s debut feature documentary. He personally shot the comedy tour, all six comedy performances and five interviews. Regash is also including his beautiful street photography in the Palestine Comedy Club film, creating collage stories of each of the cities visited on the tour to provide audiences with a deeper dive into the diverse cultures found across Palestine.
Producer’s profile:
Charlotte Knowles is an award-winning TV and film producer. Her work has been featured on BBC, ITN, and Arte. Notable achievements include her term as CEO of the Independent Film Trust, where she oversaw the development and production of various critically acclaimed projects, including the award-winning, Scottish BAFTA and BIFA nominated documentary “Rebel Dykes.” In 2022, Charlotte founded Tough Crowd Limited, a production company exploring narratives at the intersection of politics and pop-culture. Palestine Comedy Club is the first feature documentary to appear from Tough Crowd. Under the Tough Crowd banner, Charlotte also created the CreativeHQ App, a mobile app providing professional development and business coaching for creative media producers.
Palestine Comedy Club نادي الكوميديا في فلسطين
Palestine Comedy Club is a comedy production company established in the UK and Palestine by Palestinian stand-up comedian, Alaa Shehada, with assistance from comedy director, writer and researcher Dr. Sam Beale, and film producer, Charlotte Knowles.
Under the leadership of Alaa Shehada, Palestine Comedy Club is working to establish a stand-up comedy circuit across the West Bank providing space and funds for emerging stand-up comedy talent in the region to hone their craft and develop a culture of live comedy performance that is unique to the Palestinian experience.
Palestine Comedy Club’s first show, ‘Balad’ (بلد ) toured to venues in Ramallah, Nablus, Haifa, Nazareth, Jerusalem and Jenin in 2021. Performed by Alaa Shehada, Hanna Shammas, Raed Sheukhi, Diana Swity, Ebaa Monther and Khalil Al-Batran, ‘Balad’ explores the complexity of Palestinian identity as it is experienced across the entire region, from Hebron to the Golan Heights.
The show received excellent reviews and was described as “ laughter in extreme pain, and a turning point towards a different comedy in Palestine.” (full review shared below).
The group is currently in the process of developing a show that will travel to the UK, before returning to Palestine to work with a wider range of stand-up comedians including more established talent such as Adi Khalefa.
Palestine Comedy Club will also be delivering workshops throughout the year to encourage more performers to take up stand-up comedy and become part of the growing comedy ecosystem.