Akmal Saleh - Background

Background

Born in Egypt, Saleh moved to Sydney, Australia in 1975 at the age of 11. While his father Riyadh, a university professor, was fluent in English, neither Saleh nor his mother Marie could speak the language when they arrived. He grew up in Punchbowl, New South Wales and describes himself as having been a quiet child who was "the class clown's assistant. I was the guy who got his props ready." He grew up in a "very right-wing fundamentalist Christian family", which he says contributed to his sense of humour. "My father... was a very witty man with a quick mind. My mother was neurotic and mad. I think the combination of those two turned me into who I am," he says.

Saleh was 14 when his father died of a disease contracted years earlier when swimming in the Nile River. Searching for something meaningful in his life, Saleh became very religious and joined the Coptic Orthodox Christian church. However, within a few years he says he grew resentful of the religion, finding it "corrupt and hypocritical". Saleh says that when he discovered comedy it "filled the void that religion left", and his disillusionment with Christianity became a subject of comedy in his stand-up routine from early on. Saleh now describes himself as an agnostic.

He began performing stand-up comedy in 1990, when he decided to take part in an Open Mic night at the Sydney Comedy Store. Prior to this, he started a number of university degrees and drove a taxi. Saleh is married; his wife, Cate, is a social worker. He has said that they do not intend to have children, a decision he says which is probably influenced by his father's untimely death.