Riaad Moosa (Urdu: رياض موسی; born 18 June 1977) is a South African comedian, actor and doctor.
His sister is a doctor, his Indian-born father is an orthopaedic surgeon, his Cape Town-born Malay mother is a GP.
[6] Moosa started doing stand-up on campus during his fourth year at University of Cape Town.
In 2003, he performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, headlining in the Cape Comedy Collective – The new South Africa Stands Up production.
[10] In 2007, Riaad toured South Africa with the American Muslim comedy troupe, Allah Made Me Funny, doing the Make Love Not War show.
[11] In 2008, Riaad appeared alongside Marc Lottering and Nik Rabinowitz, in the variety comedy show 3 Wise Men, directed by David Kramer.
In February 2010, Moosa was one of the headline acts along with other South African comedians (including Trevor Noah, David Kau, John Vlismas, Tumi Morake and Marc Lottering).
[12][13] In November 2012, he performed Keeping You in Stitches comedy show at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.
[13] In 2002, he performed on Laugh Out Loud, South Africa's largest stand-up comedy television show, where he joined nine of South Africa's top comics to raise half a million Rand for the Reach for a Dream foundation.
In 2012,[24] Moosa starred in the comedy film Material, playing a young man who wants to be a comedian but his father disapproves.
[6][31] In 2013, he played the role of former South African politician and political prisoner, Ahmed Kathrada in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, an adaptation of Nelson Mandela's autobiography Long Walk to Freedom.
[8][32] Moosa uses comedy to tackle sensitive issues like Islamic stereotypes,[3] Islamophobia, racism and prolapsed hemorrhoids.