Comedian Akmal Saleh takes down Rockhampton for Mackay crowd
Comedian Akmal Saleh is still reeling from a mum punching him in the nose at an agricultural show while he was dressed up as an Arab but now says he deserved it. WATCH THE VIDEO
Mackay
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Comedian Akmal Saleh found his groove with a Mackay charity gala audience when he called Rockhampton a sh--hole.
He realised he had found kindred spirits as he shared his hate for the beef capital of Queensland.
The two cities work closely together but there has always been a long-held rivalry between the two.
And the Egyptian-born comedian’s reluctance to return to the Central Queensland city amused the hundreds present.
“(Mackay’s) a bit too close for me to f---ing Rockhampton which is a sh--hole, let’s be honest,” he said.
Akmal said he loved “extreme sh--holes” such as Kalgoorlie, Lightning Ridge, Broken Hill
and Mount Isa but a woman had assaulted him in Rockhampton and he held it against the city.
Akmal was the main act at RACQ CQ Rescue’s Arabian nights gala fundraising dinner which raised a record $240,000 for the vital helicopter service.
The Rocky crack at the start of his performance came full circle when he asked the audience if they had any questions or feedback.
After getting permission from organisers to tell the lengthy story at the crowd’s urging, he launched into the tale of his night off in Rockhampton, about four hours drive south of Mackay.
But he confessed from the outset; “it was my fault”.
“Me and my friends … we had a night off in Rockhampton, of all places,” Akmal told the Mackay audience.
“We had not been there before and we were in the hotel room and we said what are we going to do tonight.
“My friend said ‘let’s watch a movie’ and I’m looking through the local paper and (it says) Rockhampton Agricultural Show is on and there’s thousands of people there.
“I said ‘let’s go to the agricultural show, I’ll take my video camera, we’ll interview people, it’ll be a fun night in Rockhampton’, what could go wrong?
“Then my mate, who’s a f---ing idiot, said to me ‘let’s all go dressed as Arabs’.
“And me, being a f---ing idiot, said ‘yeah that’s a great idea’.
“He just happened to have three Arab costumes in his bag. I’m lucky with sh-- like that.
“I said ‘let’s pretend Joe is a dignitary visiting Rockhampton, let’s pretend he’s the sultan of Qatar’.
“He’s a big fat guy with a big beard, he looks like a terrorist.
“The night started off well enough, didn’t start off like there was going to be violence in any way.
“We’re filming, all dressed up as Arabs, my mate Joel pretended to be his assistant.
“He’s walking up to locals saying ‘Hello my friend, would you like to meet the Sultan of Qatar’.”
Akmal, switching between Middle Eastern and Aussie accents throughout, said they got “the best responses on video”.
“This guy goes ‘Sultan of what?’. He goes ‘darling, do you want to meet the sultan of Guitar?’,” he said.
“Joe goes ‘hello my friend, I’m the sultan of Qatar, first time in Rockhampton, before you address me, you must kiss my hand’.
“I swear everyone went, ‘f--- yeah, no worries’.
“He goes up to one guy and says ‘what is this food you are eating? I’m not familiar with this food’.
“(The guy said): ‘Mate, this is Aussie tucker, it’s called a dagwood dog with sauce’.
“Like lighting, he goes ‘in my country we don’t eat that part of the dog’.
“And then I messed up, it’s my fault, I’m the idiot, I deserved it on many levels.”
Akmal said he saw a ride for children with planes going around in a circle and yelled at the top of his voice at his mate also dressed as an Arab.
“Why don’t you get on the plane and pretend you’re a terrorist cos that’ll be funny,” he said.
“This woman comes up and says ‘we’ve got children here, you’re not allowed to film’.
“I said ‘we’re not filming the children’.
“She said ‘yes you are, turn the camera off’.
“I said ‘no, I’m not turning the camera off’, I’m an idiot.
“First of all she goes, ‘listen here, you f---ing dirty wog’.
“You know when you’re talking to someone and you realise this person is not well?
“The intelligent thing to have done would have been to leave but I said ‘no I’m not leaving’.
“Then she said the line of the night for me - ‘you want a kick in the teeth, c--t’.
“I said ‘I beg your pardon’.
“I thought it was nice of her to ask first as I may not have wanted one.
“I could have just ignored that and left but I’m an idiot.
“I said ‘no thanks, thanks for asking. But hey the night’s still young, I might change my mind later, might have a few beers and think yeah it’s time I got a good kick in the teeth’.
“That’s when she went bang twice, she punched me in the cheek and then the nose.
“My nose started bleeding.
“My friend, one of my best mates Joel Ozborn, remains completely in character and goes ‘please we don’t want any trouble’,” Akmal said in a Middle Eastern accent.
“We had to get out of there real quick.
“My ego was the most hurt thing.”
Akmal said about three days later he appeared on Good News Week with Paul McDermott who asked about the subsequent bruise.
He said the show had not started so he replied: “I’ve just been working in the biggest sh--hole in Australia, a place called Rockhampton. Why can’t I work in places where the people who live there are fully evolved and walk upright”.
He later tuned in to watch the pre-recorded show and was shocked to see the comments go to air.
“I thought ‘maybe they don’t get the show in Rockhampton’, they doooo,” he said.
“The next day I’m on the front page of the local paper. The headline read NOT SO FUNNY.
“People just found out my number somehow and all morning they were texting me with threatening texts.
“I’m gonna glass ya, ya dumb wog. If I see you in Rocky, I’m gonna glass ya. One after the other.
“I finally respond to one of them, I said ‘how are you doing this without thumbs?’.
“I swear to God, not a word of a lie, he texts back, ‘I’ve got thumbs, ya dumb wog’.
“That’s my Rockhampton story in a nutshell,” he said after evoking raucous laughter from the Mackay crowd.
A woman labelled “Jane” rang the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin the next day after the Good News Week episode aired and said she was only looking out for her five-year-old daughter and the four other girls she was looking after on the day.
She said Akmal and the two other men did not identify as being famous.
“He was filming the girls. Not in a dirty way, but it was unnecessary. I told him politely: ‘You can’t do that,” she told the Bully.
“I asked him politely to stop and he just laughed at me.
“He told me to ‘f--- off idiot’. He was quite rude and quite abrupt.
“When he laughed at me and told me to f--- off, that’s when I hit him.
“He’s getting off very lightly. He was very abrupt, very rude. Everyone around him was getting angry. I just happened to be the one who spoke up.”
The woman did not give her real name because she did not want to be charged.
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