Why are top comedians performing at a comedy festival in Saudi Arabia?

This weekend marks the first-ever Riyadh Comedy Festival, with Jimmy Carr, Aziz Ansari, and Dave Chappelle on the bill. It’s being reported they are each being paid upwards of $375,000 to perform in a country which severely restricts freedom of speech. What does Trump’s cryptic “good luck to all” at the UN really mean for Ukraine - and should we be worried? Is the breakthrough on Huntington’s disease The News Meeting’s first genuinely good news story?

Giles Whittell is joined by The Observer’s International Editor, Steve Bloomfield, and reporters Rachael Healy and James Tapper as they pitch the top story of the day

** Listen to The Observer’s new culture podcast We Have Notes HERE

**Join us at the next News Meeting Live HERE

Follow us on Social Media:

• @ObserverUK on X
• @theobserveruk on Instagram and TikTok
• @theobserveruk.bsky.social‬ on bluesky

Host: Giles Whittell, Deputy Editor-In-Chief

Producer: Amalie Sortland

Executive Producer: Rebecca Moore

To find out more about The Observer:

Subscribe to TheObserver+ on Apple Podcasts for early access and ad-free content

Head to our website observer.co.uk

Download the Tortoise app – for a listening experience curated by our journalists

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.