As a seasoned actor and stand-up comedian, Omid Djalili is familiar with wild shifts of mood: serious dramas by day, silly jokes at night. Those shifts have been particularly seismic of late, however.
The British-Iranian comic has spent the past few years as the executive producer of the documentary We Are Many, about the 2003 Iraq War protests – a labour of love, if also heavy going.
“That’s the life of an artist, I suppose,” says Djalili with a smile.
He is taking time off from his film duties to perform a stand-up show at MusicHall Dubai on Saturday, May 9.
“It’s been four years of my life,” he says. “I’ve been writing a book, doing stand-up gigs, then we’d do a screening at midnight, me and a couple of other producers. They’d wait for me, we’d do the screening, make notes on every draft of it.”
The punishing schedule seems to have been worth it. The finished film has earned rave early reviews and the list of interviewees is certainly impressive, including Noam Chomsky, Jesse Jackson and former weapons inspector Hans Blix.
It might seem an unlikely project for a stand-up comedian, but Djalili did have previous experience of film production, on The Infidel, a 2010 comedy.
We Are Many was directed by his long-time friend, Amir Amirani.
“He needed money, he needed guidance, friendship and support, so we started a journey together,” says the comic.
“He had footage from nine years ago – he’s been working at it a long time. It was like his little pet project. But I said: ‘Look, you have something massive here, it’s really about the future of humanity,’ and I don’t think he realised that.”
Djalili has tackled weighty topics on stage before, but admits he was “not the sort of person who liked marching”.
Then he became immersed in the subject matter of We Are Many: the largest demonstration in history, in February 2003, when millions across the globe gathered to protest against the imminent Iraq War.
“The whole Arab Spring would never have happened if it wasn’t for that demonstration,” says Djalili. “It’s interesting, it really is – it’s a shift. Humanity is waking up to its own power.”
The film is still looking for a distributor in the UAE, but is getting a big release in the United Kingdom this month – so it’s a bit surprising that Djalili has found time to squeeze in a Middle East tour.
But then, gigs can be a useful release, and he says his current show was specially created to ease the strain. It boasts the memorable title Iranalamadingdong but, he says, "isn't actually focusing on the Middle East so much – it's talking about everyday things: long-term relationships, the pitfalls and trappings of celebrity, getting older".
“I wanted to do a show with generic subjects, but with my own spin on it, because working on this documentary with Amir, everything was getting a bit too much and I found it too serious to make jokes about, so I decided to give myself some relief,” he says.
Despite the universal themes, Djalili admits that bringing the show here “is going to be a challenge – I don’t know if people will see it the same way, I might have to make a few adjustments”.
But then, his stand-up is more accessible than most. One critic recently described him as “the Iranian Mr Showbiz”, owing to his frequent singing and dancing.
“It’s a tradition where I come from, if you’re holding court, there’s got to be a bit of song and dance as well,” he says. “That’s just the way we are. A lot of people in the Middle East, if there’s a one-man show and there’s no singing and dancing, that’s not a one-man show – that’s just someone talking.”
In the past decade, Djalili has certainly diversified his career, which now includes musical theatre, films and even voicing a character in the Grand Theft Auto video-game franchise. He has also found time to write an autobiography, Hopeful, which was "very therapeutic". It comes out in paperback this week and has been widely praised.
"I called it Hopeful, because that's the most important thing, to remain hopeful," he says.
“There’s an amazing quote from Winston Churchill, which is in the book: ‘Success is failure after failure, with no loss of enthusiasm.’ Which I think is very important – that’s been my life.”
• Omid Djalili performs at MusicHall, Zabeel Saray at the Palm Jumeirah, Dubai, at 8pm on Saturday, May 9. Tickets cost from Dh295 on dubai.platinumlist.net
artslife@thenational.ae