1979: Persianality Disorder is a dark, satirical and playful hour by Sepideh Kaav. Sepideh grew up in post-revolution Iran and moved to Europe, finding herself equally unwelcome in both. The show moves between the political and the personal without warning. It is a collection of personal stories told without filters. No grateful survivor moments, no tragic victim speeches.

August 18, 2026   Fest

Interview: Comedians in Conflict

On February 28th, Sepideh Kaav was in a Berlin taxi, on her way to a gig, when news broke of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death in a US-Israeli airstrike. The Iranian stand-up wrote a swift response before taking the stage. “And that was definitely an interesting experience,” she recalls. “Delivering the news and then immediately delivering a joke. Up until we’ve cracked the first joke, such shocking things feel unreal.”

As discussed in her Fringe debut, 1979: Persianality Disorder, Kaav grew up in Tehran’s post-revolution Islamic theocracy, “where being a woman you don’t have certain freedoms” and she was arrested by the morality police for her student dress. Yet she’d already been turned on to stand-up by US counterculture icon George Carlin. “It really resonated with me,” she recalls. “I would pretend I was doing it in the shower but I never thought I could actually do it.”

That changed when she moved to Germany in 2021. As an immigrant, she faced racism for the first time and was agitated by Western contentment. Unable to forget the “pain and suffering” she’d left behind, comedy became an outlet to “scream my anger”.

However, when the American offensive began, “it changed the way audiences receive my jokes.”Continuing, she says: “I want to show that Iranian women are women. So I try to be relatable. But it feels like everything I say becomes geopolitical. For many people in Europe, Iran was an afterthought. But now it’s so real, everything has become a little more direct.”

She’s anxious to not be seen as “leveraging” the conflict for personal gain. But when she couldn’t reach her mother after a round of bombing, “I was upset, I needed to address that on stage”. She won’t claim to represent Iran, “that’s very dangerous territory” because there are “so many different opinions, both in Iran and the diaspora”. But she believes she’s found sufficient balance, “the right path. Because I get hit from all sides”. Click Here For Article

August 18, 2026    EdFringe Review

Sepideh Kaav’s solo dark comedy show, 1979: Persianality Disorder, is a mixed bag of genuinely hilarious jokes and jokes that shock the audience into silence. An Iranian woman who now lives in Germany, Kaav explores her culture, controversial politics, and ‘woke’ topics with confidence and control.

Though late to the stage, Kaav warms up the audience immediately with a quip about her visa being delayed. This impressive ability to perform on the spot continues throughout the show, as Kaav navigates audience reactions and awkward silences with ease. She is conversational with her delivery, speaking to the audience with a casualness that makes it easy to listen. If a joke doesn’t land the way she has planned, Kaav skilfully makes light of it and finds a way to segue into her next joke.

Though advertised as a dark comedy show, that is still not enough to prepare for how truly dark and offensive it is. Kaav comes out swinging with jokes about her Iranian upbringing and the stereotypes against Iran, and she does a good job at towing the line while staying funny. However, the show deteriorates as it goes on into something that crosses lines in all directions as she covers topics such as 9/11, Jews, Russians, incest, God, and non-binary people with a flippancy that weakens humour, if any, hidden within them. It seems she is saying these things just to shock people, rather than to entertain. On top of this, she drops two r-slurs that are completely out of place and tasteless. There are some good jokes mixed in, but the bombs are hard to ignore.

However, it has to be said that Kaav has true comedic potential. She delivers her jokes with an ease that comes to a much more experienced comedian. She has some excellent jokes that have the audience in stitches, and I think with some refinement, her darker jokes could steal the show. Her segments centring Iran and being a ‘personality hire’ are the most memorable, as they perfectly capture the essence of dark comedy while making it easy to laugh along.

1979: Persianality Disorder is undoubtedly entertaining, for the most part. Definitely not for the faint of heart, I would caution against attending without any knowledge of what the show is about. With some tweaks it has potential to go very far, and I can see Kaav as a very successful comedian. She has a true talent for comedy and I look forward to seeing what she does next. The gems within 1979: Persianality Disorder make it a show worth seeing, but beware of the jokes that take it too far. Click Here For Review