The inaugural Riyadh Comedy Festival closed on Thursday after a fortnight under the bright lights of Boulevard Riyadh City, and it’s likely that the unprecedented event teeming with colorful and controversial Western comics will leave its mark on the now more outward-looking culture inside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The two-week event brought together, for the first time in the wealthy Islamic state’s history, roughly 50 global stand-up comedians, some of whom are bona fide celebrity comics, and marked a major milestone in its incoming leadership’s push for economic, social and cultural diversification. Yet, while some are saying this was a major moment for stand-up comedy and for a nation until recently walled off from many forms of Western entertainment, others are decrying the event as a reputational laundering shame that led living comedy legends to sell out their values and bow to the demands of a murderous regime.

YouTube video by Al Jazeera English

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