"[2] In 1987, together with club promoter, Addison Cresswell, he founded the Comedy Boom venue at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in the basement of the Abercraig Lounge.

He created and compèred a show called Comic Abuse at Pleasance Courtyard in the late 80s, which became a successful fixture and introduced acts such as Jo Brand and Jack Dee.

In 2004, while on his way to perform stand-up comedy in Israel and the West Bank, Dembina was detained for several hours by Israeli police at Ben Gurion Airport after his name reportedly appeared on a list of "known radicals".

Featuring Jeremy Hardy, Mark Steel, Reginald D Hunter and Shazia Mirza, it was on the same evening a gala event organised by the Zionist Federation at the Wembley Arena celebrated 60 years of the Israeli state.

"[14] In late 2013 and early 2014, Dembina joined other artists and writers including Nigel Kennedy, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Mark Steel at St James's Church, Piccadilly for Bethlehem Unwrapped, a festival during the Christmas season that drew attention to the Israeli West Bank barrier.

[17][18][19][20][21] In February 2015, he joined 700 other UK artists including Brian Eno, Mike Leigh and Liz Lochhead as a signatory to a cultural boycott of Israel.

[22][23] In 2015, Dembina also attracted the interest of the political community for his willingness to use sensitive subjects such as the Holocaust, Israel and Jewish stereotypes in his material.

[28][29] An early work was the musical play A Week Is A Long Time In Politics about the 1981 Hillmarton By-election in Islington and performed at The Old Red Lion theatre pub there.