Based: Cape Town
Riaad Moosa, a silver medallion graduate of the College of Magic in Cape Town, started his comedy career as a comedy magician. Regularly enchanting people with his special blend of magic and comedy, he was presented with the Comedy Magic award at the Centre for the Magical Arts in Cape Town.
Riaad, who is also a qualified medical doctor, started doing standup comedy while still studying at the University of Cape Town Medical School. He was an instant hit, receiving rave reviews at his first show.
Riaad started performing stand-up at the Cape Comedy Collective’s free Comedy Lab workshops, and just two months later he was the winner of the hotly contested One City, Many Comics Talent Competition held as part of the One City Festival in September 1999.Being one of the first members of the Cape Comedy Collective, he became a regular headliner on the comedy circuit during his rookie year, where he was also invited to perform on Pieter Dirk Uys’s “Evita Live and Dangerous” ETV comedy show.
Alongside comedians David Levinson and Paul Snodgrass, he performed to sold-out shows in his debut stand-up comedy theatre production “The Paracomics” at Artscape in Cape Town.Riaad’s humor is based on his experiences as a young Muslim relating to post-911 Islamophobia, growing up in Cape Town and general observational and opinion-based humour. Skirting around the relatively taboo topics with charm and ease this comedy doctor will split your sides and keep you in stitches at the same time.
In 2002, he supported Russel Peters in his show “Made in India” at the Luxurama theatre where he received excellent reviews. In 2002, Riaad was part of the largest stand-up show in the history of South African television “Laugh out Loud”, where he joined nine of SA’s top comics to raise money for the “Reach for a Dream” foundation.
In 2003, Riaad performed at the Ediburgh Fringe festival, headlining in the “Cape Comedy Collective -The new South Africa stands up” production. During his month at the festival he performed with the top comedians on the planet, displaying his special brand of South African humour on a world stage. Now a writer and performer for SABC 1’s the “Pure Monate Show”, Riaad still does medical locums, but has decided to give his full attention to his first love…comedy.
In 2005, Riaad played a part in Crazy Monkey’s Straight outta Benoni, he had one small line…
In September 2006 he launched his one-man show Strictly Halaal. The show played to sold out shows and continued into May 2007.
Riaad Moosa
