The festival would hardly be unusual if it weren’t in Saudi Arabia, typically stereotyped as a nation of stern, unsmiling hardliners. Numbers don’t lie,” he said, scrolling through a list of Saudi comedy videos on his mobile’s YouTube app, each with hundreds of thousands of views. (File pix) Saudi comedian Hashim Housawi performs on stage during the Stand-up Comedy Festival at the Riyadh's King Fahd Cultural Centre on Nov 29, 2017. “Saudi Arabia needs to cultivate this art. The change chimes with Prince Mohammed’s recent pledge to return Saudi Arabia to an “open, moderate Islam” and destroy extremist ideologies.

Source: New Strait Times December 08, 2017 04:18 UTC