Stand-up comedians from Iran

Persian stand-up runs on two circuits that almost never meet. At home the form is built for the large hall rather than the small room. Hasan Reyvandi, who first went on stage in Sabzevar as a teenager, works at concert length and threads impressions of singers and actors through the jokes; in 2013 he filled the Milad Tower in Tehran with a show billed as a laughter concert. The widest door was television: Khandevaneh, on the IRIB Nasim channel since 2014, mixes interviews, games and stand-up spots, and made a booked stage appearance something a comic could point to.

The second circuit sits abroad and mostly works in another language. Shaparak Khorsandi was born in Tehran and grew up in London, where her father wrote satire in Persian; she performs in English and has written memoirs in it. Nasim Pedrad left as an infant, was raised in the United States and spent five years in the Saturday Night Live cast before creating her own sitcom. Kambiz Hosseini stayed with Persian but works from Washington, presenting satirical programmes for listeners scattered across many countries rather than playing comedy clubs.

That split is the thing worth knowing about this list. A performer working in Persian has an enormous audience and very little export path, because the language does not carry and the jokes assume shared reference points. A performer working in English reaches festival and television audiences but spends part of the act explaining where the material comes from. Few people here manage both, and that, more than any question of style, is what separates the names on the page.