DUBAI: Around three years ago, Assyrian-British surgeon Jenan Younis turned down a prestigious job offer to pursue what she really wanted to do: comedy.
“I spent probably my whole twenties as a workaholic,” Younis tells Arab News from London, where she works part-time for the National Health Service. “I think there were a lot of different sides to me that I just put on the back-burner. I took a step back and looked at how I was living and I thought: ‘You know what? This is not really what I wanted.’”
Younis’ Palestinian father and an Iraqi mother, were, it’s fair to say, a little surprised by her decision. “My mum was always my number one advocate. Having said that, there’s always a part of a parent that just hopes you’re going to stick with the most sensible option in life. I don’t think my dad really knows,” Younis says with a laugh. “I made this very short TV appearance and I think a friend of his saw me on that show and called him and was, like, ‘Is that.. Jenan? What’s she doing?’ I’m not sure he quite gets it. I think to him it’s like a little bit of a hobby.”
Younis founded “Weapons of Mass Hilarity,” an alternative comedy night in the UK that places a spotlight on comedians of Middle Eastern origin. (Supplied)
But, as Younis tells it, performing stand-up comedy was part of her life from the beginning. When she was around five years old, she used to mimic her father, drawing out laughs from her closest friends in her living room. “I would do impersonations of how he’d get mad, the ridiculous things that he’d say, and the mistakes he’d make with English phrases and idioms,” she recalls. “Finding the comedy in a ridiculous situation was always there. Sometimes all you can do in a situation is laugh.” Growing up in England, her mother introduced her to British comedy sketch shows such as “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” and took her to see her first live show.
Back then, representation of minorities in comedy was minimal and she remembers the only Middle Eastern funny figure she could relate to was the British-Iranian comedian and actor Omid Djalili. “We watched a lot of him,” she says. “He’s gone through his huge evolutionary journey in terms of how much he talks about his identity. Only recently we found out that he’s Baha’i, so he’s also this minority within a minority. He was a big influence.”
The minority aspect is paramount to her and her comedic act, tapping into personal matters. As a youngster, she went to church with her family and only spoke Assyrian at home, which is something she’s grateful for.
Younis tells it, performing stand-up comedy was part of her life from the beginning. (Supplied)
“I grew up loving the multicultural history of the Middle East,” she says. “I think we talk, in the West, in terms of multiculturalism being a relatively modern phenomena that only happens here, when actually we’ve been like that forever.” Given the rise of Daesh in Iraq in 2014, which led to an exodus of minority groups, she feels it’s important to tell her story as an Assyrian woman.
If there’s one thing that being British and Middle Eastern had in common, in Younis’ formative experience, it is that there were certain things you just didn’t do or talk about. “This sort of comes back to my Britishness. There’s this idea often that you can’t correct people, that you have to be amenable, that you’re somehow (in the wrong) to correct people if they get your religion wrong, your ethnicity wrong and they assume something about you,” she remarks. “I would often go along with it, just to be polite. And also, it’s a little bit of a Middle Eastern thing — never talk about politics, never talk about religion. I mean, we do at the breakfast table and in our own homes, but outside? No.”
Younis has become more vocal however. She has appeared on the BBC, both on radio and television, and won the BBC New Voices award in 2019. She also founded “Weapons of Mass Hilarity,” an alternative comedy night in the UK that places a spotlight on comedians of Middle Eastern origin.
She has appeared on the BBC, both on radio and television, and won the BBC New Voices award in 2019. (Supplied)
“If you pick a random comedy night in the UK, I would say ninety percent of the time the lineup will be just men — and it will be predominantly white men. There was a very clear diversity issue,” she says. Through “Weapons of Mass Hilarity” she hopes to break down the Middle East’s misconstrued image. “There’s always this assumption that the stories we tell are going to be Arab-centric, Muslim-centric, or terrorism-centric,” Younis says. “I really wanted to make it very clear how diverse this region is and how much more we have to offer.”
The sold-out shows have attracted all kinds of audience members, from older people who have never seen live comedy before to diasporic Arabs who are likely to learn something new about the region. “I still meet people who are from Iraq, who don’t know what Assyrians are, don’t know that we have our own language, or don’t know anything about us. It’s also breaking down those stereotypes within our own diaspora communities,” she says.
At a time when socio-political tensions continue to divide, she believes comedy can pave the way to mutual understanding. “One of the beautiful things about comedy is that you can present things that people don’t want to listen to in a way that will make them listen. It’s a different form of communication,” she says. “I think the more we talk about something, the more we normalize it, the more we soften the edges a bit.”
As a youngster, she went to church with her family and only spoke Assyrian at home, which is something she’s grateful for. (Supplied)
Younis’ next performance is at the Camden Fringe Festival on August 28 and 29, presenting “Jenanistan,” her full-length show.
“When I started writing the show, I think I was exploring this idea of visibility,” she explains, “I sort of felt a little bit invisible as a minority, either within Britain, or within Middle Eastern communities. But it’s sort of evolved to become a little bit more than that. I would probably summarize the show as trying to tackle these dual identities that we have. One part of it is discussing integration, which we talk about as a very positive thing, versus assimilation, which is a negative thing. Is there a difference between the two? What do they mean?”
Younis says she aspires to one day create a weekend-long comedy festival with her “Weapons of Mass Hilarity” family, taking on different genres, such as sketches and musical comedy, and being as inclusive as possible.
And as for coming over to the Middle East to perform? “Never say never,” Younis says. “I’ve formed connections with regular people in the Middle East, who might have listened to a podcast or seen a video clip and related to what I did. I find that really heartwarming.”
