TORONTO: In 2007, when Italian-American New Yorker Mina Liccione was offered a gig in Dubai, she had to Google where the UAE was.
Now, 18 years, one Arab husband and twin sons later, Liccione is a key figure in the country’s comedy scene, and is bringing her latest stand-up special, “Arabized,” to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this August.
Liccione co-founded Dubomedy, a comedy school and training platform, with her now-husband, comedian Ali Al-Sayed, in 2008. “What started as ‘there is no scene here’ has become a scene that is very much seen,” she told Arab News.
Her 2017 special, “By Nature,” captured her early years of cultural discovery. “Arabized,” which debuted live in November 2024, marks a different stage, she explained, saying: “The fish isn’t out of water anymore. She’s fully immersed in the sea.”
Where “Araby by Nature” focused on the wide-eyed wonder of a newcomer, “Arabized” forced her to confront harder truths about her own upbringing. “I’ve had to decolonize my mind” and “unlearn a lot of what I was taught growing up,” she said.
While writing the show, Liccione was “heartbroken” watching the war in Gaza unfold, she said. That grief became the rap track “Delulu,” co-written with Al-Sayed and Palestinian-American rapper Omar Awbu, which featured in “Arabized.”
Her support for Palestine started in New York, where she attended her first protest as a teenager. Since then, she has performed in charity events, collaborated with Palestinian artists, and led workshops in refugee camps in Jordan.
During those trips, making a child laugh uncontrollably meant more to her than “any standing ovation or sold-out theater,” she said. “That’s when I really understood that comedy has a much higher purpose.”
Liccione believes Palestine should “never be known only through war, destruction and grief,” but also for its culture, food, art and sense of humor — part of why she hosts fundraisers for the country.
“Laughter is a form of resistance,” she said. “The ability to laugh doesn’t mean people aren’t suffering. It means hope still exists.”
Not everyone has been receptive. Liccione said she has never had an issue with an Arab audience member but has drawn hostility online and in the US from self-described Zionists, who have called her a traitor and accused her of “raising terrorists.”
She has also fielded a friendlier stream of reactions — non-Arab audience members and people married into Arab families telling her some version of “I never looked at it that way,” or “that is exactly my life too.”
Married to an Arab comedian and raising two Arab-Italian Muslim sons, Liccione said there is little separation between her material and her actual life. “This isn’t a brand I created — it’s me,” she said. She and Al-Sayed each mine the other’s family for material, delivering what she calls the “he said, she said” version of their marriage.
As Liccione embraced the culture she was once taught to fear, she discovered how similar Southern Italian and Arab families are — from using bread as a utensil to believing olive oil is a cure-all. “We serve guests way too much food and get personally offended if you don’t eat more, drink coffee in impossibly small cups — whether it’s espresso or qahwa — and never show up to someone’s home empty-handed,” she said.
“It’s basically the same family with different recipes.”
Those similarities, however, don’t extend to the industry. “Stand-up comedy is an American art form,” Liccione said. “It was born there, and the US has had well over a century to build an entire ecosystem around it.”
The UAE, on the other hand, is a young country, “so it’s not really a fair comparison,” she added.
Today, Dubomedy alumni are producing shows across Europe, Canada and Southeast Asia and performing at internationally recognized fringe festivals.
But Liccione remembers the early struggle. No venue was interested — they thought comedy was too risky, and karaoke was a safer bet, she recounted. That changed in 2009, when a venue manager who had worked with comedians in Bali agreed to host Monday Night Funnies, the UAE’s first weekly comedy night featuring local talent.
Liccione, who has brought previous shows to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, said returning with “Arabized” feels special, as the show dives into social commentary and is full of what she calls “Mina energy.”
The Middle East isn’t a headline or a stereotype, she said. “The more we travel, listen, laugh, and break bread together, the harder it becomes to fear one another.”
“Arabized” streams on Edinburgh Fringe’s C Arts On-Demand platform from Aug. 7-31.
