Mohanad Elshieky

I have recently learned that Osama Bin Laden was a Pisces

Hello and welcome to this week’s What’s Left? I’m very glad you’re here. Every Wednesday, I’ll email you a fun and dare I say it, good/interesting, chat with someone from somewhere on the left. If you have any suggestions for who I should talk to next, please let me know in the comments or notes on Substack. I would love to hear from you.

Last week’s episode of BBC Radio 4’s The Naked Week involved me doing a last-minute response to the workplace sexual harassment allegations against British celebrity chef, Gregg Wallace. On my way to the recording, I prepared by watching my old boss Samantha Bee’s rant after the Weinstein story broke in 2017. It’s still very funny and angry and passionate. Too bad nothing has changed and I’m being asked to do the same thing seven years later! You can catch my own angry and passionate response on BBC sounds. We were also interviewed in the Guardian last weekend, doing the unenviable task of trying to talk seriously about comedy.

Now then, speaking of Full Frontal and Sam Bee, it’s time to meet another of the show’s alumni, Mohanad…

Mohanad Elshieky is a stand-up comedian and writer who was born in Libya and is currently based in New York. He has appeared on Conan, Late night with Stephen Colbert and Comedy Central, but none of this is as important as the fact that he has not one, not two, but five cats. We spoke in November, fresh after Trump’s gross electoral success.

Hi Mohanad, thank you so much for this! How are you?

Hi, I’m not bad, given everything.

It seems like your career's going well, even if your country isn't?

I feel like my career does well when everything else is going to shit. I guess I can never have it both ways.

It's like that old Sex in the City quote.

Which one?

It’s something like, ‘You can have the perfect guy, the perfect apartment or the perfect job, but you can't have all three.”

Well, we definitely don't have the perfect guy, that is for sure.

Ha ha. So imagine a version of the political spectrum with zero being totally centrist and at 100 it's the most extreme left. Where would you put yourself?