Omid Djalili - Middlesbrough Town Hall (From The Northern Echo)

Omid Djalili - Middlesbrough Town Hall

1:11pm Sunday 12th February 2012 in Reviews By Matt Westcott

WOULDN'T it be great if, rather than being religious radicals hell-bent on destroying the West, as the US would have us believe, Iranians were, in fact, all like Omid Djalili.

What if, rather than wanting to send us into nuclear oblivion, they were instead proficient joke tellers, full of wacky observations on the world, who were prone to breaking into song and dance at any moment.

Instead of the being at the sharp point of the Axis of Evil they were, in fact, part of the Axis of He-he-hevil.

Maybe, just maybe, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speeches have lost something in translation.

It's a nice thought and certainly better than the alternative.

During Friday night's performance there were plenty of references to the the land of Djalili's fathers - “To you, an Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman is a joke, to us it's a hostage situation” - a sprinkling of political incorrectness - “suicide bombing is like jury service” and references to the growing part social media plays in the delivery of world news - “Twitter is great. Where else would you find out about the death of Osama Bin Laden from Everton full back Phil Neville”, but more than anything there was plenty of daftness, which only served to prove that great comedy is universal.

Interspersed between these topics were plenty of nods to the North-East, something touched on by warm-up for the night, the superb Boothby Graffoe, and which gave the show a unique feel.

“Tony Mowbray has to be the ugliest manager in football. The only reason he came here was so he could blend in,” said Djalili. As a put down, it could have been a lot worse.

A 20-minute encore became half-an-hour as our host realised he was in good company and, I suspect, we all could have listened to a lot more.

As the lights came up, our cheeks ached, our eyes were watering and our hands were sore from clapping.

As we wandered into the night, I wondered whether the aforementioned Iranian president should take a leaf out of Djalili's book and go on the road. Now that would be radical, in the very best sense.