Abdallah Alansari

Abdallah Alansari is an Emirati stand-up comedian, improviser and ventriloquist. Billed in the press primarily as a stand-up comedian who is also the Emirati Puppet Master for his use of ventriloquism in his act, he has built up more than 500 shows performing comedy in both Arabic and English for adult and family audiences, alongside work as a master of ceremonies at events. Alansari has said that watching Kuwaiti performer Basel Al Dosary as a child first showed him that Arabs can be funny too, inspiring him to take up comedy himself. His material often exaggerates aspects of Gulf culture to the point of absurdity so that audiences recognize an issue and reflect on it, and he tailors his jokes to the age and nationality of each crowd. At the time he was profiled by Khaleej Times as one of a new generation of young Emirati comics reshaping how the region is perceived, he was working as a teaching assistant at the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology. He has performed as part of the Dubai Comedy Festival lineup alongside fellow young Emirati comics such as Bin Swelah.