Arabic stand-up comedy is getting one of its biggest mainstream platform moments yet.
Lebanese comedian John Achkar’s new special Tryin’ premiered on Shahid this week, the platform's first long-form stand-up comedy release. It is a major step forward for a regional comedy scene still carving out its identity on global streaming platforms.
Filmed live at the Olympia Hall in Paris, the show also marks another debut. Achkar became the first comedian to perform a full Arabic-language stand-up show at the venerable venue, which has hosted artists including Fairuz, Celine Dion and Edith Piaf.
For Achkar, however, the significance of the special goes beyond personal achievement.
“I genuinely believe that for us as comedians, it’s very important to be able to tell our stories in Arabic wherever we go in the world,” he says. “Stand-up comedy is still very nascent in the Arab scene.”
Born in Beirut in 1990, Achkar began performing stand-up in 2017. He gained wider recognition after clips of his performances spread across social media. His comedy often explores marriage, Arab identity, work culture and the anxieties of diaspora life.
He has toured extensively across Europe, North America, Australia and the Gulf, performing at venues including Dubai Opera and the Enmore Theatre in Sydney. He also appeared at the 2023 Dubai Comedy Festival.
Tryin’ focuses on the uncertainty and contradictions of life in one’s thirties. The special follows Achkar through “career curves, second chances, and life that won’t stick to the script”, according to Shahid, using humour to unpack personal expectations and social pressures.
“The story … is our all-time struggle to understand success,” he says. “What is success? How do we define it? How do people judge us if we are successful or not?”
Rather than relying heavily on crowd work or roasting audience members, Achkar says he sees stand-up as a form of storytelling built on vulnerability and reflection.
“My definition of success is when people reflect on my stand-up when they leave the room,” he says. “It’s not only that we came, we had fun and then we went home as if nothing happened.”
That philosophy also shapes how he views the wider Arab comedy scene, particularly as stand-up evolves from short viral clips into a more established live entertainment industry.
“We have the responsibility as comedians to show the best of this art form,” he says. “We want people to take stand-up seriously as something you can build a career out of.”
Part of the challenge, Achkar says, is infrastructure. While cities such as Montreal and New York allow comedians to test material nightly, many Arab cities still lack dedicated comedy venues.
“In Dubai now there is one comedy club. In Riyadh there is one. In Beirut there are two or three. In Cairo, imagine, not even a proper comedy club,” he says.
That shortage eventually pushed him to invest in creating his own spaces, including a pop-up comedy club in Beirut and a venue in Dubai where he could test material without interruptions from bars or noisy crowds.
“I invested thousands of dollars in a comedy club just for me to test my jokes,” he says.
The Shahid release is proof that Arabic stand-up can exist beyond social media virality and become a fully realised art form with global reach, Achkar believes.
“We want to tell our stories everywhere,” he says. “We want to tell our stories on the biggest stages in the world.”
That ambition is reflected in the special’s production. Achkar describes the performance as carefully choreographed, with deliberate lighting, sound design and stage direction guiding the emotional rhythm of the show.
He says that approach has also changed the way audiences interact with him during shows, particularly when it comes to heckling.
“I think heckling is a defence mechanism for people,” he says. “People think comedy is about roasting people.”
While his early viral clips often centred on crowd work, Achkar says he has increasingly moved away from that style.
“People know that I’m not here to attack them. People know that I’m not here to say mean things on stage,” he says.
The distinction ultimately comes down to intention and connection.
“We laugh because we empathise,” he says. “You’re not laughing at the pain of the person; you laugh with the person because we’re all in this pain together.”
John Achkar’s Tryin’ is now streaming on Shahid
