Comedian Akmal Saleh shared an anecdote about a recent meeting with showbiz veteran Richard Wilkins.
The 60-year-old appeared on The Project on Monday when he explained how Wilkins mixed him up with Anh Do, who hosts ABC’s Anh’s Brush with Fame.
“I was recently on one of those morning shows, maybe the Today Show,” he began his story.
“I think it was the Today show with one of the regular guests, it could have been Richard Wilkins, the entertainment reporter,” he added with a laugh.
“He comes up to me and says, ‘Dude, I’m a big fan of yours. I love that show you do on TV.” I said what show?
“Where you paint a celebrity,” Saleh added, before sharing his surprise at being compared to the Vietnam-born comedian turned acclaimed artist.
Comedian Akmal Saleh (pictured) shared an anecdote about a recent meeting with showbiz veteran Richard Wilkins.
The 60-year-old appeared on The Project on Monday when he explained how Wilkins mixed him up with Anh Do, who hosts ABC’s Anh’s Brush with Fame. Richard appears in the photo
“We are not the same race,” he said, laughing boisterously.
‘You might as well come up to me and say, “Are you Kitty Flanagan?” Yes, I’ve gotten carried away.’
Akmal went on to mercilessly mock the TV host.
‘I think the plastic surgery is hurting his head! I didn’t want to disappoint him and I said, “No, that’s good! I’ll have you on the show next time.”
The comedian is fearless when it comes to taking hits and has previously attacked cancel culture in Australia.
At the time, he compared the freedom of expression enjoyed by local comedians to that of artists in Egypt.
The well-known comedian, who moved to Australia from Egypt when he was 11, said in SBS Insights “‘Bad Jokes’ episode that speech ‘isn’t free’ and comes at a cost”.
Saleh said he grew up in a country where everything is restricted and warned Australians don’t want to get to that point.
“Today in Egypt there are comedians languishing in prisons, enduring torture for an opinion they hold contrary to the government line,” Saleh said during the debate.
Anh Do is pictured on the left with Akmal Saleh.
The show set out on a mission to find where the ‘line’ is when it comes to comedy and cancel culture.
The Egyptian Australian comedian has been performing comedy since the early 1990s.
He said that when it comes to jokes that are not liked by the public, the response should not be a pile-up on social media.
“People should be offended and accept it,” he told the TV show.
‘Accept that you are offended, don’t go see that comedian,’ he added.
“Freedom of expression is not freedom, it has a price: the price is that invariably someone will be offended by something and that is fine, it is allowed…
‘Go live in Cairo and have your opinions suppressed when the secret police knock on your door and then which do you choose?’
Comedians Rudy-Lee Taurua, Lewis Spears and Alice Fraser were among those interviewed on the show.
The comedians debated the merit of crossover and sometimes offensive humor, and also discussed when the art form becomes distasteful.
When asked if there was a line about what can be joked about, Saleh told host Kumi Taguchi that the line was between the comedian and the audience.
When the public decides “organically” that comic book material is bad, Saleh said, it is a “democratic process.”