Maliki Mardinalli

I meet up with the comedians in Safita, a city about three hours' drive north of Damascus.

They're in a shared apartment that doubles as a green room.

The venue owner let them all crash for free.

There are several mattresses to a room, suitcases under the beds, and the comics are walking in and out of rooms, getting ready, and telling jokes to warm up.

Maliki is Maliki Mardinalli, one of the founders of the group, along with Sharif.

Maliki, while you're dressing, I'm going to ask you the same question I just asked Sharif.

Is there a joke you're thinking of saying tonight that you're not sure if you want to say it, that might be a bit dangerous?

This is actually a joke about the current government, that they were such a ragtag army that they came to power in flip-flops.

Comedy and poetry are probably the hardest things to translate from any language.

Malachy plays it safe that night in Sofita.

He skips the flip-flop joke.

Styria is a small crew, around 20 comics.

Two of them are women.

Some still keep their day jobs.

There's a dentist, a university lecturer, an engineer, students.

They are mostly in their 20s and 30s.

The group's name, Styria, is a combination of Syria plus hysteria, because that's what it felt like to laugh in Syria when the group got together three years ago.

A manic release.

Sharif and Maliki do this full time.

Sharif is the group's spiritual leader, the one who used to have a folder labelled Lebanon.