By Lisa Clark 
What a stunning show! Sami Shah is a born comedian, unfortunately he was born in a part of the world that’s not very conducive to a satirical comedy career. Lucky for us he’s moved to Australia. Islamofarcist – Putting the “Ha” in “Jihad” tells us how this came to be, via lessons about Islam, Pakistan and the importance of Baywatch.
Sami seems to have arrived on Melbourne stages a fully-fledged, world class, comedy star. Sami has actually had an amazing life thus far. He started in impro in Pakistan which is surprising enough, but that he’s only really been throwing himself into a comedy career in Australia since 2012 is hard to believe. Since then he has appeared on QI, created a BBC4 radio series and has had a book about his life published. These things are less surprising when he starts doing his comedy for you.
He begins by taking an everyday popular meme about religion and intricately dissects it with comedy and pretty quickly has the audience in the palm of his hand. The information he gives us about Pakistan, Islam and, for example, the difference between Sunni and Shiite turns out to be funnier than you’d think and should also probably be considered a bit of a public service. It’ll have you laughing your butt off, but you get to learn stuff too.
ISLAMOFARCIST is political without really going into politics, it’s about religion without being preachy, about ideals while remaining down to earth and it’s actually quite dangerous. Sami could be killed for this show in some parts of the world. Not surprising that he lives here then and lucky us.
If you have a hankering for intelligent, yet accessible, comedy from a warm, talented comedian who knows what the hell he’s talking about, go see Sami at Fringe, ISLAMOFARCIST is everything Fringe should be and more.
Sami Shah performs ISLAMOFARCIST Putting the “Ha” in “Jihad” at The Lithuanian Club til Oct 1st
https://melbournefringe.com.au/program?event/islamofarcist/a482e708-188f-4d33-92f2-f7de0988d934