Dubai comedian Nitin Mirani aiming to be crowned the World’s Funniest Person

A comedian from the UAE is among 10 semi-finallists in a competition that hopes to sow the seeds of world peace through stand-up comedy.

The Dubai-based Indian comic Nitin Mirani will perform with nine other comedians at renowned comedy club The Laugh Factory in Hollywood on Monday, October 20, and the five who get the most internet votes travelling to Las Vegas on Friday – United Nations Day – to compete for the title of World’s Funniest Person.

“I’m looking forward to the competition because the Chinese guy and the Pakistani guy are friends of mine and I’ve crossed paths with a couple of the others on the comedy festival circuit,” Mirani says.

But can comedy really help to bring peace?

“I think comedy is one of the most sincere ways of entertaining and educating people,” he says. “I connect with you, you connect with me and we have a good time.”

Last summer, with Israeli-Palestinian tensions at the highest they’d been for some time, Jamie Masada hit on the perfect formula for world peace: Forget about fighting, just tell jokes to each other.

The former stand-up comic is, after all, the owner of The Laugh Factory, so the idea seemed obvious.

Still, it’s one thing to get an audience laughing at lines like, “Take my mother-in-law – please.”

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Dubai comedian Nitin Mirani aiming to be crowned the World’s Funniest Person