Janine Harouni arrives at her local pub in East London with a small white dog, her ‘fur born son’ Charles Barkley, in tow. It is a freezing day and in an idyllic winter scene we find seats by a fireplace. Charles looks for blows from me, but growls at a passing man.
“He doesn’t like men as much as he likes women,” says the American comedian and actor, “he’s trying to protect us.” Charles has been much more protective lately and even stands guard at the front door, because Harouni gave birth to her son three months ago.
What does maternity leave look like for a stand-up comedian? “It’s a lot like not taking maternity leave,” said Harouni, a Staten Island native. “A week after the baby was born, I did a voiceover. I’ve been to Manchester and Oxford filming. You can’t say no to work.”
That wasn’t totally negative. “Many people say you lose your identity. But in reality it is changing, and it is a difficult adjustment,” she says. “To go back to work, something I love, feels like I haven’t lost that part of myself.”
Harouni is preparing to take her latest show, the Edinburgh Comedy Award nominated Man’oushe, on the road. A year ago it started as a show about preparing for parenthood. But as 2023 unfolded, and she suffered a miscarriage, and then the death of her friend and collaborator Adam Brace, “it became a show about the worst year of my life and I tried to make every possible meaning out of that.”
When she agreed to participate in the Edinburgh festival last year, it was shortly after the miscarriage and she had just discovered she was pregnant again. Harouni didn’t know what would happen in the coming months, so she signed up. She wanted to talk about her miscarriage: “I thought I knew what a miscarriage was, but then I had one. It’s so much more painful than I could imagine.”
There was secrecy and shame. “Part of my shame was, well, this wasn’t a real baby, so why should I be so sad?” she says. “I am very much in favor of abortion, but a baby was wanted. My brain was sending me mixed signals. In our culture there is no funeral, you don’t name the baby, it’s like it didn’t really happen. But actually it felt like my baby had died.”
Harouni’s miscarriage happened between her eight and 12 week scans, a time when we are told to keep pregnancies secret. “You absolutely have to tell everyone,” says Harouni. “Because when you experience a miscarriage, you need a support network.”
Her instinct for exploring difficult personal experiences on stage was developed, not innate. Most people think that stand-up is always a solo activity; Harouni teamed up with Brace, a writer and director who behind the scenes shaped hits like Alex Edelman’s critically acclaimed stand-up and Liz Kingsman’s Olivier-nominated One Woman Show. Brace helped expand her idea of what stand-up could be and encouraged Harouni to add moments of silence between punchlines. “It’s so unnatural for me to be vulnerable,” she says. “It’s awkward to be serious.”
When you’re pregnant, you’re huge. It felt powerful to be that big
In Stand Up With Janine Harouni (Please Remain Seated), Harouni’s 2019 debut, which earned her a nomination for best newcomer in Edinburgh, she explored the complex relationship with her father, the Trump-supporting son of Lebanese immigrants. She also talked about one of the most difficult times of her life, when her parents nursed her back to health after a car accident that left her unable to walk. Brace urged her to record the car accident story: “I was really resistant. But he pushed me, and that show was so much funnier because that part was in it.
Harouni started stand-up later than most, in his late twenties. However, it was not her first experience with performing. When seven-year-old Harouni saw Annie on Broadway, “I turned to my mother and said, ‘I want to do that.'” She attended a rally in Staten. Children’s theater group on the island up to the age of 18. Eventually a place at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (Lamda) brought her to Britain. “I thought I was going to do Shakespeare plays at the Globe,” she says. After graduating, she was cast as Julia in the 1984 West End production. When it finished, “I was unemployed for almost a year and thought, okay, this is what being an actor is. I would say it’s an audition, but you’re even lucky to get an audition.
She developed a taste for comedy when she and two Lamda friends, Meg Salter and Sally O’Leary, began writing sketches together as Muriel. About the closing, She asks for it – satirizing the accusatory phrase often directed at women who have been assaulted – received 125 million views.
Standup felt like an opportunity to regain control of her career after her acting stint. Jokes about Trump and her impressions of her New Yorker parents went over well and she quickly qualified for the competition finals. Awards raise mixed feelings among comedians, but “it helps you get paid,” says Harouni. “I have a little voice in my head that constantly tells me I’m no good. External validation helps.”
Last year she played Man’oushe six nights a week on the outskirts of Edinburgh while eight months pregnant, bringing her due date closer and closer. “As women, we don’t take up much space in the world, and we’re not particularly encouraged to do so. When you’re pregnant, you’re fucking huge. It felt very powerful to be that big,” she says.
It also gave her miscarriage material a glimmer of hope – the audience could see that this wasn’t the end of the story. Harouni was of course very happy that her pregnancy continued, but was also affected by the inequality – it meant she had to receive hundreds of injections and tablets. “And all my husband had to do was cum!”
On stage, Harouni also finds comedy in the most extreme side effects of pregnancy, and how blissfully unprepared she had been for them: “I was one of the most miserable pregnant women. I complained about everything.” Every night she asks an audience member to share his own weirdest side effects. “People think of it as a women’s issue, but it’s so important to talk about it, especially in front of men,” she says.
It felt good to talk about Brace on the show too; it aligned with everything he had taught her about the value of vulnerability. “It certainly felt weird to be on stage and not talk about the grieving process.”
She learned of Brace’s death at age 43, due to complications from a stroke, while traveling to preview her show last April. Grieving, especially in Britain, can feel very private, according to Harouni. While that’s fair for some, “I like it when people bring him up, I like talking about him because I think about him all the time,” she says. “Talking about him while grieving him was incredibly cathartic. The number of people who came up to me after the show who had suffered a similar loss made me feel less alone.”
Harouni transformed the pain into a performance about love, loss and parenthood. She thinks back to her Lebanese heritage: her grandmother, after whom she is named, was a successful singer in Lebanon who worked with Arab music giant Fairuz, but she sacrificed her career to move to the US, “and her children the opportunities to give that she didn’t get. living in a war-torn country,” says Harouni. “We are both immigrants. We are both artists. I wanted to reflect her experience.”
Brace was a parent in his own way, Harouni says on stage: he shaped so many comedy careers, so many peerless shows. “It was so nice to be on the edge and see the echoes of Adam,” comes Harouni’s voice. “It felt like he was still alive because what he taught us all was still in practice. He was the best.”
Jokes and joy intersected the adversity. “Comedy and tragedy go hand in hand. Even though I talk about losing a friend and losing a baby, I try to end the show with hope and love,” she says.
Now that her son is here, Harouni has added new jokes about him and his arrival via C-section. He has reached the age where he laughs and giggles – it’s easy to take hope from that. “I like to make people laugh,” says Harouni. “But I Love make him laugh.”
Janine Harouni is touring January 14 until February 26; tour starts Manchester.