No laughing matter: Comedian Saad Haroon means business

The runner-up in Funniest Person in the World competition hopes to inspire other comedians from Pakistan as well

KARACHI: For a person who has been performing stand-up comedy in Pakistan for more than a decade and that too in English, Saad Haroon deserves an award.

The stand-up comedian recently participated in Laugh Factory’s Funniest Person in the World competition and secured second place behind Finland’s Ismo Leikola.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, the comedian, who is now based in New York, spoke about his remarkable run at the inaugural Laugh Factory Funniest Person in the World competition.

“I always wanted to win. I had the confidence in me that I am going to win and I even thought that a 100,000 votes would just appear from somewhere to make me win,” remarked the comedian.

The founder of Pakistan’s first improvisation comedy troupe, Blackfish, said that it was his desire for victory that kept pushing him on and he had utmost faith in his ability to succeed in the competition.

“To be honest, I just kept pushing for it and lost no hope, even when I was in the judging round and not the voting round, I was pretty confident that I’d make it to the finals and I did,” said Haroon.

The competition, which only came into prominence a few weeks ago had actually started four to five months back. The initial rounds saw experts from the stand-up comedy community select 100 comedians to participate in the competition out of which 10 and then five comedians were shortlisted by a panel of judges in Hollywood and Las Vegas for the semifinal and final respectively.

Haroon who hasn’t performed in Pakistan for quite some time now was overwhelmed by the love and support he received from his home country stating, “If it wasn’t for everyone at home I wouldn’t have won.”

“The way they have supported me, clearly shows that Pakistanis are amazing, warm and beautiful people who are always looking for something positive to celebrate and cherish,” exclaimed The Real News host.

The last few days have seen social media dominated by news of the stand-up comedian reaching the semifinal and finals of the competition with Pakistan’s top celebrities requesting people to go and vote for Saad Haroon on the competition’s website.

Haroon was in awe of the artists’ community’s support and particularly thanked the likes of Strings, Fawad Khan, Mahira Khan, Messha Shafi and Ali Zafar for their support on social media.

The comedian, unable to hold a joke, responded to the untiring support of Pakistanis in a comedic manner, “There has been a huge outpouring of happiness and positivity from Pakistanis the social media but then there is also that one person who’d always comment saying, ‘Saad you should die’.”

Side by side, Haroon has been building up on his legacy and has also played a major role in honing the comedic geniuses of many like Danish Ali, Ali Gul Pir and Akbar Chaudary, to name a few.

“I feel humbled and overwhelmed that I was able to inspire a few artists in Pakistan but I am not the one responsible for starting it. It was shows like Fifty Fifty and legends like Anwar Maqsood and Bushra Ansari who triggered the love for humour in me and I am just taking that forward,” said Haroon.

Ali Gul Pir, a local comedian-singer, who has also worked with Saad, was full of praise for the comedian remarking that, “Saad’s victory is not only great for stand-up comedy in general but for the art of comedy in general.”

Pir compared Haroon’s success to  Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy saying that hopefully more people would tread into the world of comedy now.