KUALA LUMPUR: Laughter takes centre stage with the Kuala Lumpur International Comedy Festival 2015 (KLICFest).
Happening from Sept 16 till 23, this full-fledged international comedy festival is the brainchild of popular comedian Harith Iskander.
The festival will see the participation of more than 60 comedians from 14 different countries, and they will be performing various shows in English, Bahasa Malaysia, Bahasa Indonesia, Tagalog and Cantonese.
It will showcase every aspect of comedy from sketch to satire, musical to slightly less traditional like a comedy magician and a hypnotist comedian.
The shows will be held at Publika’s Black Box, White Box and The Bee, and Crackhouse Comedy Club, in Taman Tun Dr Ismail.
Harith said that KLICFest is aimed at creating a bigger platform in the future in order to fulfil the growing demand for comedy in Malaysia.
“Everyone has heard of the Edinburgh Comedy Festival, Melbourne International Comedy Festival and Montreal’s “Just For Laughs” — three of the biggest, most prestigious comedy festivals.
“Hopefully KLICFest will be a step towards getting Kuala Lumpur in that elite group of cities, and become a long-term event for us,” he said at the KLICFest launch at the Berjaya Times Square Hotel here recently.
The festival’s gala night will be held at the hotel’s Manhattan Ballroom on Sept 20.
It will see Harith performing a stand-up comedy titled To Know Malaysia Is To Laugh Malaysia. He will be joined by seven of KLICFest’s top comedians, namely Tom Rhodes (US), Roy Wood Jr. (US), Rex Navarrete (US) and Paul Ogata (US); Barry Hilton (South Africa), Nazeem Hussain (Australia) and Gina Yashere (UK).
Dubbed the Godfather of Malaysian Stand-Up Comedy, Harith has performed hundreds of live shows since 1991, not only in Malaysia but also in Asia and Australia.
KLICFest 2015 is his biggest and most ambitious project yet. “This is a huge first for us, and we’ve been working hard to make sure the festival will be a hit.”
“We have had comedy festivals before in Malaysia such as the PJ Laugh Fest and LOL Fest, but KLICFest 2015 is on a much bigger scale, considering the high number of international comedians participating,” he added.
Tickets are available via www.ticketpro.com.my. Visit www.klinternationalcomedyfestival.com for more details on the festival and its line-up of entertainers.