Stand-up comic Ali Saddiq talks storytelling and return to Tower District in Fresno

Ali Siddiq 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.

“I just come where people want to see me,” 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.

“I make a habit of coming back,” he said.

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’s through, and the next tour begins.

‘Stand-up comedy’s most prolific storyteller’

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’s “most prolific storyteller.”

“Everything has been stories,” Siddiq says.

“Whether they were short or long.”

He moved away from observational and other types of comedy a decade ago or more, because he couldn’t see a path for him there. “I just knew in this craft, I was going to be true to me,” he says. So, while other comedians work from a notebook full of jokes, Siddiq doesn’t write anything down.

He doesn’t need to.

He remembers the stories, “because I’m living the life,” he says.

And that has proved to connect with audiences.

In 2015, Siddiq did a now-famous spot on Ari Shaffir’s Comedy Central web show “This Is Not Happening.” By design, the show lent itself to long-form comedy and Siddiq’s story (about being wholly unprepared for a prison riot) became an online hit and eventually led to a full-length special on Comedy Central.

“People just resonated with me for that,” he says.

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 “The Domino Effect” series was released via Siddiq’s Youtube channel between 2022 and 2024.

Another three came the following year, including “My Two Sons,” which won an NAACP Image Award. It was the first time an independently produced and released YouTube special had been nominated.

His latest special, “My Father,” was released in June. Already, there’s another six “in the can,” he says.

He’s getting ready to film more.

By contrast most comedians will release one special every five years, if that, Siddqi says.

“I have total control,” he says.

“It just gives me freedom to do whatever I choose to do.”

Other comedians performing Fresno

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

Over at the Warnors Theatre, Ali Wong is slated to perform Oct. 1, followed by Tig Notaro Nov. 14 and the comedian Concrete Dec. 5.