“Edgy and silly in exactly the right balance” – Sara Pascoe
With a sharp, punchy delivery and a no-nonsense presence that grabs and holds attention, Hasan Al-Habib brings his boundary-pushing debut solo hour Death To The West (Midlands) to this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe. A show that’s as blisteringly intelligent as it is incisively funny, Death to the West (Midlands) has already gained critical acclaim springing from a nomination for Best Debut Show at the Leicester Comedy Festival 2025.
Born to an Iraqi immigrant family and raised in post-9/11 Britain, Al-Habib lays bare the absurdities of identity, perception and prejudice in a sharply satirical set that refuses to flinch. Set against the backdrop of Brummy banter, Iraqi parenting and thickly-laced racism, he charts the dissonance of growing up between two worlds — one inherited, one imposed — and how his life changed forever when his new home country invaded his family’s old one.
From teachers telling classmates to ask him why 9/11 happened, to tabloids claiming Muslims are waging a war on Christmas — only for him to arrive in Baghdad to find festive lights, trees and stockings in his family’s living room — Death To The West (Midlands) is an extraordinarily clever and deeply personal exploration of how we see ourselves, and how others decide to see us.
Expect commentary on everything from the idea that Muslims are taking over Britain, why Saddam Hussein would love Drayton Manor theme park, and what happens when Brummies take being inherently friendly too far.
Before comedy, Hasan was rejected twice from Cambridge at Undergrad and instead studied at Imperial in London. He did his masters at Oxford because there weren’t any that appealed to him at Cambridge, and then finally, seven years after seeing Robert Webb on Mastermind advise anyone who wanted to get into comedy to join the Footlights, he was accepted into Cambridge for a PhD. So expect him to bring scientific rigour to his fast-paced, fierce and ferociously funny stand-up.
Thinking his dream had been realised, Hasan found himself in front of a panel of 10 people, all white, who would decide who passed their Footlights auditions. And that committee wasn’t elected, but chosen by the 10 from last year — their friends
When Hasan raised the issue of diversity publicly, it sparked a “diversity scandal”, nationally covered by the Mail, Telegraph, Times and Guardian, culminating in a press statement from the Footlights that claimed his raising the issue was actually putting off BAME students from performing. Eventually, the Footlights adopted a democratic process to elect committees; Hasan’s role in this was later covered in a Guardian long read.
Hasan performed at the Midlands regional heats of the BBC New Comedy Awards 2024, won the 2023 Birmingham Comedy Festival Breaking Talent Award and was a finalist at the 2022 Chortle Student Comedy Awards. This will be Hasan’s debut solo hour, but he already took the Festival by storm in 2024 with a sold out run of his double act show, 2 Muslim 2 Furious.
Ultimately, Death To The West (Midlands) is about more than the clash of cultures — it’s about finding peace in the mess. And Hasan Al-Habib finds it the only way he knows how: by being gloriously, unapologetically himself: a Brummy Arab (“y’arright BAB!”) who just wants to make you laugh.
Listings Information
Show: Hasan Al-Habib: Death To The West (Midlands)
Date: 30th July – 24th August 2025 (Not 12th)
Time: 4:30pm
Venue: Pleasance Courtyard – Below
Address: 60 Pleasance, Edinburgh, EH8 9TJ
Price: From £9
Box Office: www.edfringe.com / https://www.pleasance.co.uk/event/hasan-al-habib-death-west-midlands
