Sharjah Art Foundation’s Music and Sound Club is a series of fortnightly hands-on workshops and meetup sessions form anyone interested in music and sonic arts. This second workshop is a two-parter – on 4 and 18 October – that introduces [... more]
Yet another strong-looking bill for this month's Laughter Factory tour: Marlon Davis – one of the UK’s rising comedy talents, breezily confident and good at observational comedy George Zach – standup whose credits extend beyond the comedy club circuit to [... more]
The Mad Cat team does the rather cool Moon Bar at the Sana Restaurant in Mina Al Salam – a great venue: quite intimate, few distractions. Featuring surprise drop-ins, fresh material, and “the kind of intimate room where sitting in the [... more]
The UAENO's tribute to a pioneering composer who blended traditional Arabic melodies with Western influences comes to Sharjah with a concert that invites audiences to rediscover familiar works in a new symphonic setting.
With Amin and Obaid. "Two comedians take turns on the stage, and by the end of the night you’ll still be trying to figure out how these two ended up on the same bill ..."
Another fine Cinema Space choice: winner of a Caméra d’Or Special Mention at Cannes and the 2026 BAFTA award for Outstanding Debut Feature, My Father’s Shadow is a stunning debut for the British-Nigerian filmmaker Akinola Davis Jr. Set in 1993 [... more]
Mad Cat Comedy’s only open mic night: comedians test new jokes, new performers take the stage, and dog lovers are welcome to come along for a fun evening in JVC. Only 20 seats available. Free entry!
A grunge-ish evening for the opener of the Fridge Concert Series, though headliners PeachPuffs are closer to a UK-style indie band with their sharp songwriting, good melodies and stage presence. They can play, too, and they have a new single [... more]
Mad Cat’s standup team at their regular stop at the Easy Tiger bar in Abu Dhabi’s Al Ain Palace. The door price of AED 99 includes two drinks …
This 12th edition of the Sharjah Calligraphy Biennial has the theme 'Balance' and features 297 works by 145 artists from around the world. It's always an interesting visit because of the range of styles and techniques on show, covering traditional [... more]
A Comedy Kix gig with a strong bill – Imail Abdi, Valentina Danubio, Ahmad Kasidcomedy, Saeed Alnahdy and Enoud Metaweaa. Note that is a non-smoking room, and there’s no FnB – but you can bring your own booze (!) and [... more]
Andrew Eisenberg, Associate Professor of Music at NYUAD and Head of the Music Program there, combines oral history, ethnography, and musical analysis to explore how musicians in twentieth-century Mombasa used Arab and Indian musical influences to navigate questions of identity, [... more]
A conversation moderated by Sarah Almehairi exploring Moza Al Mazrouei's artistic practice across sculpture, film, mixed media, writing, and curation. Moving between research and fiction, observation and participation, the discussion touches on authorship, selfhood, and the structures of power that [... more]
The Courtyard’s popular evening of elimination improv. Ten actors converge for a night of scenes, songs and games based on audience suggestions. After each round you score the players on a scale of 1 to 5, and the one with [... more]
An exhibition conceived and curated by Prof Omar Kholeif, featuring Sonia Balassanian, Jai Chuhan, Luísa Correia Pereira, Lalitha Lajmi, Irene Scheinmann and Omar Kholeif himself. Developed from nearly two decades of Kholeif’s research, writing and relationships with artists, the exhibition [... more]
For more than five decades, the Syrian artist, poet, and critic Talal Moualla has approached the image not simply as representation, but (says the gallery) “as a form of thought ... Moving between painting, criticism, poetry and research, his practice [... more]
The projects exhibition for seniors of Zayed University's College of Arts and Creative Enterprises – usually among the best student/grad work you see in the UAE. Covers animation, graphic design, interior design and visual arts.
Sharjah Art Foundation’s Music and Sound Club is a series of fortnightly hands-on workshops and meetup sessions form anyone interested in music and sonic arts. Bridging the analogue and the digital, this session encourages you to craft hybrid musical works [... more]
In conjunction with the NYUAD Art Gallery's current exhibition All Manner of Experiments, the Gallery has organised a special screening of Ilana Navaro's well-regarded documentary exploring how late 19th- and 20th-century artists from the region developed alternative modernities. The film [... more]
It’s 20 years since Back to Black was released, so there’s a reasonable hook for this performance by “the original musicians who performed alongside Amy on stages around the world and helped shape her distinctive sound both live and in [... more]
Mad Cat Comedy's regular Thursday stop in Silicon Oasis promises "insane laughs every week". The door price of AED 99 includes one drink and popcorn.
The fifth edition of the Al Sidr Environmental Film Festival, presented with Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi, is themed Mend, or رَمِّم in Arabic. In this context, the word considers environmental restoration, from habitat and species recovery to water stewardship [... more]
Founded by Emirati filmmaker and curator Nawaf Al Janahi in 2020, Cineolio‘s mission is focused on promoting short films and expanding their audience reach internationally. Its Cinenights screening series presents a diverse selection of short films on the big screen, [... more]
A week of this interactive live dating comedy show for Dubai Comedy Festival "where we laugh about your worst dates, talk relationships, and give you the chance to pitch your single friends. Help them find true love, and help yourself [... more]
A concert with flautist Naïssam Jalal and oudist Hazem Shaheen that brings together modern jazz and the classical Arabic tradition of improvised taqsim. Jalal has a storied career in collaborations across a variety of musical styles, primarily in contemporary jazz [... more]
Mad Cat Comedy’s regular standup night at Xandros in Signature 1 Hotel, TECOM. The cover charge of AED 80 includes one drink.
Yet another strong-looking bill for this month's Laughter Factory tour: Marlon Davis – one of the UK’s rising comedy talents, breezily confident and good at observational comedy George Zach – standup whose credits extend beyond the comedy club circuit to [... more]
An evening of Arab music reworked with sweeping orchestral arrangements, celebrating the richness of the region’s musical heritage and blending authenticity with contemporary orchestral performance. The Yemeni Heritage Symphonic Orchestra is conducted by its founder, the Yemeni composer and conductor [... more]
A Dubai Comedy festival gig – Ahmed Ahmed, a co-founder of the groundbreaking Axis of Evil Comedy Tour, will be joined by Brandon Johnson, Sean Fawaz, Barney Rivera and UAE-based comedians Amr El Assal and Noha for what looks like [... more]
The UAE’s next generation of comedians? Standups aged 12 to 18 compete for the title of Short + Sweet Comedy Junior Champion 2026.
Yet another strong-looking bill for this month's Laughter Factory tour: Marlon Davis – one of the UK’s rising comedy talents, breezily confident and good at observational comedy George Zach – standup whose credits extend beyond the comedy club circuit to [... more]
A second run of this interactive live dating comedy show for Dubai Comedy Festival "where we laugh about your worst dates, talk relationships, and give you the chance to pitch your single friends. Help them find true love, and help [... more]
A regular Mad Cat Comedy night – “Dubai’s wildest comedy show on Saturday” at “the first purpose built comedy room in the country”. The cover charge of AED 99 includes two F&B coupons.
Led by conductor François López-Ferrer, recipient of the 2024 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award, the UAE National Orchestra opens the Abu Dhabi Festival's 2026 season with what looks like a super programme. It kicks off with Franz von Suppé’s Overture [... more]
The final gig for this month's Laughter Factory tour. On the bill: Marlon Davis – one of the UK’s rising comedy talents, breezily confident and good at observational comedy George Zach – standup whose credits extend beyond the comedy club [... more]
A second set for Ahmed Ahmed plus Brandon Johnson, Sean Fawaz, Barney Rivera and UAE-based comedians Amr El Assal and Noha. A Dubai Comedy festival gig.
“What is the ultimate goal of a city?” asks architect/artist Hamad Almuzaini: “Governance and the streamlining of lived experience – an impossible task – or something more open, broken, and constantly reinvented?” The exhibition looks at placemaking within the context of [... more]
An exhibition dedicated to the natural maturity, abundance, and fullness of autumn, including works by Rimma Gagloeva, Javlon Umarbekov, Timur Akhmedov, and Vera Nechaeva. Because each artist approaches the theme of autumn in their own way, discovering a personal language [... more]
Sara Masinaei’s solo show explores how urban spaces shape memory, movement and lived experience: "through walking, collecting found objects and recording traces of overlooked surfaces, she treats the city’s ground as an active part of how we experience and navigate [... more]
The AD’Art artist collective with an exhibition celebrating the Sorbonne’s 20th anniversary – new works exploring heritage, knowledge transmission, and cultural dialogue, through "diverse and personal artistic perspectives".
The original, and possibly the best, of the Star Wars mega-franchise. Written and directed by George Lucas, and featuring one of the most dramatic intros ever, this unmissable adventure introduced a galaxy of cleverly drawn characters – Princess Leia (Carrie [... more]
A sensitive portrait of an American family and an emotional drama about finding kindred spirits in unexpected places. Bill (David Strathairn, excellent) is a pillar of his Southern community: a business owner, a veteran, and the proud patriarch of an [... more]
We must've missed the preliminaries, but here we are with what are described as "the best UAE-based comedians together for one hilarious Finale — 60 minutes of fast, fearless and seriously funny comedy". They each get five minutes to win [... more]
A variant of this interactive live dating comedy show for Dubai Comedy Festival: as the audience arrives, they fill out confession cards with their dating and relationship stories; host Akkaoui reads the confession cards, using the stories to spark jokes, [... more]
The Mad Cat team does the rather cool Moon Bar at the Sana Restaurant in Mina Al Salam – a great venue: quite intimate, few distractions. Featuring surprise drop-ins, fresh material, and “the kind of intimate room where sitting in the [... more]
The 38-year-old comedian and content creator coined the term ‘goofy guy’ to capture his mix of lighthearted crowdwork, musical performance, and playful irreverence. He works hard at the job, though; he obviously takes show preparation seriously, and as a result [... more]
Known for his ability to navigate between different worlds – street and stage, hip-hop and postmodernism, personal and political – Mohamed Toukabri has a new solo work where movement becomes both excavation and rebellion. Says SAF: "This piece pulses with [... more]
Multi-award-winning British comedian Mo Gilligan is stopping off at the Dubai Comedy Festival with his new show, 90 minutes of solid material delivered with characteristic high-energy delivery. He's moved seamlessly from viral one-minute internet sketches to sold-out hour-plus arena shows [... more]
An interactive live dating comedy show for Dubai Comedy Festival: as the audience arrives, they fill out confession cards with their dating and relationship stories; host Akkaoui reads the confession cards, using the stories to spark jokes, conversations, and interactions [... more]
Sharp, bright, quick-witted, award-winning and very funny, especially about her own life. One of the safer bets in this year's Dubai Comedy Festival.
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