{"id":461791,"date":"2026-09-12T16:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T16:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/461791\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T16:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T16:42:09","slug":"ali-siddiq-returns-to-fresno-for-tower-theatre-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/461791\/","title":{"rendered":"Ali Siddiq returns to Fresno for Tower Theatre shows"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ali Siddiq<\/a> jokes about coming back to Fresno; how the city probably got put on the tour map by mistake after a spot fell through someplace else. He ends with a serious pause, for effect, and then a laugh, to kill off any tension.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just come where people want to see me,\u201d says the stand-up comedian, talking to The Bee in advance of a pair of performances, 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday night, at the Tower Theatre.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI make a habit of coming back,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Siddiq just stopped in Fresno in March 2025. His return comes on the second half of his Custom Fit tour, which kicked off in January and will hit 100 cities before it\u2019s through, and the next tour begins.<\/p>\n

\u2018Stand-up comedy\u2019s most prolific storyteller\u2019<\/p>\n

Over close to 30 years, Siddiq has embraced a style of long-form comedy that led the entertainment site Vulture to call him the industry\u2019s \u201cmost prolific storyteller.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cEverything has been stories,\u201d Siddiq says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether they were short or long.\u201d<\/p>\n

He moved away from observational and other types of comedy a decade ago or more, because he couldn\u2019t see a path for him there. \u201cI just knew in this craft, I was going to be true to me,\u201d he says. So, while other comedians work from a notebook full of jokes, Siddiq doesn\u2019t write anything down.<\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t need to.<\/p>\n

He remembers the stories, \u201cbecause I\u2019m living the life,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

And that has proved to connect with audiences.<\/p>\n

In 2015, Siddiq did a now-famous spot on Ari Shaffir\u2019s Comedy Central web show \u201cThis Is Not Happening.\u201d By design, the show lent itself to long-form comedy and Siddiq\u2019s story (about being wholly unprepared for a prison rio<\/a>t) became an online hit and eventually led to a full-length special on Comedy Central.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople just resonated with me for that,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

What followed was a series of deeply personal comedy specials that Siddiq released independently, eschewing traditional outlets like Comedy Central or Netflix. The four-part \u201cThe Domino Effect\u201d series was released via Siddiq\u2019s Youtube channel<\/a> between 2022 and 2024.<\/p>\n

Another three came the following year, including \u201cMy Two Sons,\u201d which won an NAACP Image Award. It was the first time an independently produced and released YouTube special had been nominated.<\/p>\n

His latest special, \u201cMy Father,\u201d was released in June. Already, there\u2019s another six \u201cin the can,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s getting ready to film more.<\/p>\n

By contrast most comedians will release one special every five years, if that, Siddqi says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have total control,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just gives me freedom to do whatever I choose to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other comedians performing Fresno<\/p>\n

Siddiq\u2019s tour stop comes in the midst of what has been a good run of stand-up comedy in Fresno<\/a>, and at the Tower Theatre, specifically. His shows will be sandwiched between performances by known-name comics Whitney Cummings<\/a> (Friday) and Max Amini<\/a> (who recently added a second show on Sunday).<\/p>\n

Over at the Warnors Theatre<\/a>, Ali Wong is slated to perform Oct. 1, followed by Tig Notaro Nov. 14 and the comedian Concrete Dec. 5.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published September 12, 2026 at 4:50 AM.<\/p>\n

Joshua Tehee<\/a><\/p>\n

The Fresno Bee<\/p>\n

Joshua Tehee covers breaking news for The Fresno Bee, writing on a wide range of topics from police, politics and weather, to arts and entertainment in the Central Valley.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ali Siddiq jokes about coming back to Fresno; how the city probably got put on the tour map…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-461791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}