Rizal van Geyzel’s halal-ish second act

GEORGE TOWN: This is not the Rizal van Geyzel many remember.

The comedian who made his name with loud, crude, fearless routines once seemed almost allergic to restraint. He was the sort of comic who delighted in making a room gasp before making it laugh.

But in Penang on Saturday night (July 4), Rizal returned as a very different performer. The old shock comic still surfaced in flashes, but he now spoke the language of fatherhood, divorce, faith and starting over.

His new show, “Single Fatherhood”, is built around the collapse of his marriage and his life as a father raising three children. It is not exactly clean comedy: there are still potshots, uncomfortable lines and moments where the old Rizal breaks through.

But the tone has changed. This is less a man trying to offend the room and more a man trying to explain what has happened to him.

Rizal frames the show around a deeply personal story – from a broken marriage and the difficult aftermath of divorce to the complicated task of raising children after everything has fallen apart.

The show also hints at second chances: in love, in family, and perhaps even in how a man chooses to rebuild his life after scandal.

Much of this sounds almost too heavy for a comedy show. In another comedian’s hands, it could easily have become a counselling session with a microphone.

But Rizal still knows when to break the tension with a punchline. At one point, he practically describes it as catharsis – or “audience therapy”.

The result is uneven but interesting. Some jokes land like the Rizal of old: blunt and deliberately uncomfortable. Others come from a quieter place, where the laugh is less about shock than recognition.

What is perhaps most surprising is the religious turn. Rizal now speaks openly about being a practising Muslim, and faith runs through the show almost as the new framework through which he views his life.

There is a fair amount of dakwah woven into the material, though it is still delivered as comedy.

In one bit about performing at a festival in Scotland, he jokes about the frustrations of travelling there – nowhere to charge a phone properly, and, worse for Malaysians, no proper place to use the toilet because there are no bidets.

Then comes the turn. The best place he found in Edinburgh, he says, was a mosque: air-conditioning, clean toilets, prayers to recharge spiritually, and somewhere to top up his phone battery.

“It is a good time to be Muslim,” he tells the audience, landing the line somewhere between joke, testimony and sales pitch.

For those who remember the controversy surrounding him, this shift is hard to miss. Rizal was once arrested over videos said to have touched on race and religion, and was later fined after pleading guilty to one charge of transmitting offensive communications.

That history lingers in the background of the performance, whether he addresses it directly or not.

Which makes this new persona fascinating. Is this repentance? Reinvention? Survival? A practical reset after scandal? Or simply what happens when a man who built a career on saying the unsayable is forced by life to say something sincere?

The show never fully answers those questions.

At times, Rizal seems completely at ease with his new self. At others, the old comic appears to be pushing his way back, as if the pious father and the reckless club comedian are sharing the same stage.

That tension, however, is the show’s greatest strength. The comedy is not always polished, and some of the personal material may leave audiences wondering how much should be said in public. But it is rarely dull.

Stand-up comedy often leans on politics, race, sex, language and everyday urban frustrations. Rizal’s new material feels different – a messy male confession filtered through some very adult realities.

Those expecting the Rizal van Geyzel of his Crackhouse Comedy days may well leave surprised. For a comedian once known for testing the limits of what he could say, the more compelling question now is whether he can live with what he has become.

Rizal van Geyzel performs ‘Single Fatherhood’ in the Klang Valley on July 18. For more info and tickets, click here.