The last time comedian Sofie Hagen performed in Dubai, it was to "20 people in a pub" (she can’t remember which one). That impromptu gig – for Dubai Laughing, while she was here on a holiday visiting her brother who does "something with computers" – was a preview of her Edinburgh Festival Fringe debut, Bubblewrap. She went on to win the career-making 2015 Best Newcomer Award for the show.
This week, Hagen returns to the GCC to play to a combined audience of thousands over seven dates in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha, as part of The Laughter Factory tour. Needless to say, the 28-year-old London-based Danish stand-up is the hottest act on the bill.
In the intervening 18 months, Hagen has won thousands of fans with her fearlessness and honesty. Onstage, she speaks frankly about conquering her body-image issues, depression and self-harm. Offstage, she "overshares" through social media, a series of feted podcasts and a "really uncomfortable" newsletter.
Her promotional blurb touts the bittersweet praise by a broadsheet in the United Kingdom: "eye-catchingly odd". And she never, ever, lies on stage. "Everything I say is 100 per cent true. That’s where I get my kick from," says Hagen. "It’s the reason I do comedy."
She describes this filter-free approach as sounding reminiscent of therapy.
"I would be more scared of not doing it – I would be so afraid that people could tell that I was lying," she says.
"The worst thing is when I find out a comedian is lying onstage, like when they’ve done a whole show joking about their girlfriend, and you find out they’re single – you’re not being yourself if you’re lying to the people."
Hagen’s ultimate faith in sincerity is the result of an "epiphany" which came just three years ago, when an older comic gave her a piece of career-changing advice.
"He said my problem was I was too scripted – I had to know exactly every single word I would say before I went on.
He said: ‘Try to go onstage without having anything prepared at all’, which is absolutely terrifying," admits Hagen. "I ended up talking about something which had happened that weekend – being rejected by a man in a really embarrassing way – and I just started talking about it, and how I felt onstage and how the audience reacted was so new to me. So real – they knew I was telling the truth – they knew this had just happened, and it was an epiphany."
The fruits of this approach bloomed little more than a year later with the surprise Fringe win – Hagen only intended to take a half-hour show but could never wrap on time – which sparked prime time UK TV appearances, including BBC’s The One Show and Russell Howard’s Stand Up Central.
All of it would have been unimaginable for this unambitious soul, who just six years ago, intended to stay in Denmark and live as teacher of the Russian language.
An adolescent comedy fan who learnt English – and a sense of humour – as a child from "horrible American sitcoms" The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and The Nanny, Hagen never dreamed of getting onstage until, at the age of 21, she met some "open-mic comedians" at a bar and decided to "write a load of bad jokes" and follow them onstage.
"I thought I was cheating," says Hagen. "Every time I came offstage and people were laughing I was just a bit: ‘Hmmm, I got away with it again’. It was two years in that I told my gran: ‘Maybe I might be good at this’. It was almost more terrifying to know that I was good, rather than just getting away with it."

Source : The National