In a career that spans BAFTA wins, Netflix documentaries and sold-out shows, Mo Gilligan has become one of British comedy’s biggest exports. Ahead of his Dubai return, he’s having the last laugh.
Mo Gilligan appears on screen wearing a grey tracksuit, which feels like an appropriately British response to the miserable weather outside his window. “The rain is back in the UK, so it’s a bit wet,” he says with a laugh.
The weather might be grey, but Gilligan certainly is not. He is in good spirits: charming, confident and charismatic, switching between thoughtful reflection and rapid-fire banter with the easy rhythm of someone who has spent years learning how to hold an audience. Even over a video call, there is something instantly likeable about him. He laughs often and seems genuinely amused by the strange places his career has taken him.
And these days, those places are increasingly far from home.
On 12 October 2026, Gilligan will return to Dubai Opera as part of Dubai Comedy Festival with The Mo You Know World Tour 2026. It is another stop in a career that has taken him from filming comedy sketches for social media to Netflix specials, television shows, BAFTA wins and some of the biggest stages in Britain. Dubai, however, occupies a particular place in his affections.
“It’s one of my favourite places,” he says. “I’m not saying it just because I’m coming there, but it really is. I get a lot of love when I go there.”
He remembers his first encounter with Dubai Opera just as vividly. “That is top three venues I think I’ve ever seen,” he says. “I remember walking out, and you know, we do a soundcheck and stuff, but when we walked out I was like, ‘Wow, this is really, really nice.’”
For Gilligan, the attraction extends beyond the stage. He has holidayed in Dubai, has friends and family in the city and likes its peculiar ability to bring seemingly everyone together.
“It just feels like this hub,” he says. “Everyone’s there. Some people have packed up and left the UK, and they’re like, ‘I’m here for work. I’m here for family. I’m here for nightlife, social life.’ Everything’s there.”
Then comes the Gilligan punchline.
“Small things, like going to the mall, I’m like, ‘There’s an aquarium in the mall.’ Normally in the UK you’d have to pay for something like that, but it’s free. Let’s just look at the sharks.”
More importantly for a comedian, Dubai is a city willing to go out.
“As a comic you’re like, are people going to come out on a Tuesday or a Wednesday if I’ve got a show?” he says. “All my friends are like, ‘Bro, we’ll come out any day. We just want to see some comedy.’”
That international audience brings another consideration. Gilligan’s comedy is unmistakably British, often rooted in the rhythms, accents and observations of London life, but a Dubai crowd can contain people from dozens of countries.
“I want to give the best example of what a Mo Gilligan show is,” he says. “I don’t want to assume that everyone’s first spoken language is English.”
At home, he can turn the dial further towards London. “I can drop more London stuff,” he says. Abroad, the challenge is making the material travel without stripping away its personality.
“If I change it too much or make it too British, then it might feel like, ‘I didn’t get it.’”
It is a problem Gilligan could scarcely have imagined when he was posting short sketches online in the mid-2010s. Those clips, filled with characters, catchphrases and sharply observed impressions, began circulating far beyond his own followers. Soon, people with considerably larger platforms were watching too.
Gilligan’s early sketches became hugely popular online during the mid-2010s, attracting attention from celebrities including Drake, Rio Ferdinand, Ian Wright and rapper Giggs. Drake’s endorsement became an especially useful calling card, although Gilligan is careful not to anchor his entire career trajectory around one famous fan.
“The Drake stuff is always interesting because it helped me gain a lot of mainstream interviews,” he says. At a time when promoters and journalists were still asking who this emerging comedian was, Drake became the hook. “They’re like, ‘Drake? Wow. We’ll talk to you now.’”
Gilligan understood the opportunity. Tickets to his early shows were around £15 and the priority was simple: fill the room.
“I just wanted people to come,” he says. “I’ll just use whatever I can to get a crowd.”
The crowds came.
Television followed, including The Big Narstie Show and his own The Lateish Show with Mo Gilligan, which launched in 2019. Gilligan won the BAFTA for Entertainment Performance in 2020, while The Lateish Show later won the BAFTA for Comedy Entertainment Programme in 2022. His Netflix specials have included Momentum in 2019, There’s Mo to Life in 2022 and 2026’s In The Moment. In 2021, he also headlined The Black British Takeover at The O2 in London, a milestone he described at the time as one of the proudest moments of his life.
Yet some of the moments that register most strongly appear to be the unexpected ones. Gilligan recalls meeting Chris Rock at Wimbledon after being introduced by Tinie Tempah. Rock told him he had watched his Netflix work.
“I was like, ‘Oh wow, Chris Rock knows who I am.’ That’s insane, especially when it’s your peers,” Gilligan says. “Everyone’s human and everyone can be nice, so I think that’s something I’ve always made sure I follow.”
There is something revealing in the story. Despite everything that has happened, Gilligan still seems genuinely delighted by the absurdity of being recognised by his heroes.
It has also taught him something about celebrity.
“Doesn’t matter how big you are,” he says. “These people would still come up to me and be like, ‘Hey, what’s up, man? I love your stuff. Big fan.’ And you’re like, I’m really a small fish in this pond.”
His ambitions are now stretching beyond the familiar confines stand-up. Netflix documentary Big Chicken: A Fast Food Conspiracy placed Gilligan in a considerably more vulnerable position, following him as he ate fried chicken for breakfast, lunch and dinner while investigating the wider industry around it.
Comedy, he says, offers a degree of protection. You walk on stage and the deal is clear: make people laugh. The documentary was different.
“It’s the one thing I’ve done that is a lot more exposing,” he says. “I didn’t plan to be an investigative journalist. I wanted to really throw myself into the project.”
The result tested him.
“It’s easily the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he says. “You’re hearing really tough stories of what people are going through, and on top of that I’m going through it myself with the food and how it’s changing my body and my mind.”
The intention, he insists, was never to lecture viewers. “It wasn’t about telling people what they should and shouldn’t be. It was just maybe having a conversation.”
It is easy to imagine more projects following. Gilligan talks enthusiastically about acting and writing, and there is a sense that the next stage of his career may be considerably broader than stand-up alone.
Still, comedy remains non-negotiable.
“I think it’s really important to, at this point in my career, just kind of ride the wave,” he says “Comedy will always be the thing that I just love doing,” he says. Even now, it occupies his mind late at night and early in the morning. “It’s always a bit of a love-hate relationship with comedy. It’s not like I hate it. But like, ‘Oh, why is that joke not working? It worked last week.’”
Whatever else comes next, he says, stand-up remains underneath it all.
“The foundation is always going to be stand-up.”
Yet Gilligan is content to follow the opportunities as they arrive. “It’s really important at this point in my career to just kind of ride the wave,” he says. But beneath that wave sits something far more dependable. “The foundation is always going to be stand-up.”
For now, however, Dubai is calling.
There is still something slightly surreal to Gilligan about travelling halfway around the world and finding an audience waiting for him. He remembers looking across the crowd during a previous Dubai performance and realising it was far more diverse than the predominantly British room he had imagined.
“I was like, ‘Oh, right, everyone’s really here,’” he says.
That matters to him. For all the awards, Netflix cameras, celebrity admirers and expanding ambitions, the job ultimately reduces to something surprisingly simple: people enter a room and trust him to make them laugh.
“The fact that my art provides escapism in another country, and it’s sold out, it still blows my mind,” Gilligan says. “I can’t ever take it for granted.”
For someone riding one of British comedy’s biggest waves, keeping hold of that feeling may be the most important part.
Contact: https://mogilligan.com