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The manic pixie dream girl is out. In? The haram pixie devil lady.
Saaniya Abbas is 36 but even without adding the furry cat ears to her hairdo, she looks young and tiny enough for a 14-year-old boy to ask her out. In reality, Abbas says she only started doing stand-up comedy quite recently, a few years removed now from divorcing a white guy and finding herself as a Muslim Indian woman living in Dubai. That she’s already running a full hour at Fringe with the confidence and stage presence she possesses is remarkable.
But then again, if your parents sent you from New Delhi to an Catholic all-girls boarding school in the Himalayas, who knows how you’d turn out. If Abbas did wind up in hell, she knows she’d find her mother there.
In the meantime, though, she’s happily telling jokes wherever she can, and proud to describe her religious sensibilities as haram. Especially if you’re a man who wrongs her. “I am the Taylor Swift of comedy. If you f —with me, I’ll write a joke about you. If you don’t f— me, I’ll write a whole hour.”
Saaniya Abbas: Hellarious plays Gilded Balloon Patter House through Aug. 25, 2025.
