EDINBURGH 2026: Hasan Al-Habib Q&A

BWW catches up with Hasan Al-Habib to chat about bringing Stuck in the Middle (East) With You to the 2026 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Tell us a bit about Stuck in the Middle (East) With You.

My agent told me that my first show, Death to the West (Midlands) was good, but the next one needed to be more relatable for White British people. So this one’s about being a child of divorce. It’s also about the most tempestuous relationship of my life.

Having extended and selling out your debut last year, do you think you know what to expect from the festival?

Oh, *absolutely*. Losing my voice, money, and sanity. Tick, tick, tick.

What are the challenges with telling such a personal story?

The biggest is making it clear to the audience that the story is true. Jokes often rely on embellishment and exaggeration, so it’s natural for an audience to question what they hear. It’s something my director’s helped me a lot with.

I think about what Hannah Gadsby said in Nanette about her frustration with having to sanitise life to make it funny, and what Chris Rock said about not wanting his audiences to only laugh in his shows, but feel a raft of different emotions.

Probably the biggest challenge is audience members wanting to tell you their own lifelong trauma straight after I’ve finished sharing mine. In a way it’s a compliment, it means you’ve hit a chord. So, perversely, it’s kind of sweet too. But I’ve inadvertently become my audience’s therapist.

Who would you like to come and see it?

Anyone, but the people I’d most like to come see it are those with a troubled relationship with their parents, or those other children of divorce. There’s something incredibly unifying about being able to relate to a shared traumatic experience from childhood.

What would you like audiences to take away from it?

Contentment. Acceptance. And a flyer for my double-act show, “2 Muslim 2 Furious 3: Sharia? I Hardly Know Her!”

Hasan Al-Habib: Stuck in the Middle (East) With You runs at Edfringe 5-30 August

Photo credit: Matt Stronge 

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