The Comics Unseen
Press Kit
Stand-up · Headliner · Podcast Host
Paul Farahvar
A full-time lawyer took improv classes to get better in a courtroom. Fourteen years later he is a headliner with two specials, four podcasts, and a deadpan slow enough to make a room wait for it.
Based
Chicago, Illinois
Works in
Stand-up · Podcasting · Touring
Known for
Dry Bar Comedy hour · Helium special · Singles Only
Podcasts
Why Are You Awake? · Stuck With Paul · Singles Only
Interview
57 min · The Comics Unseen · 2026
“Truth in comedy is what I was taught. You’ve got to be truthful on stage.”
Paul Farahvar — The Comics Unseen
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Biography
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Paul Farahvar is a Chicago stand-up, headliner and podcast host who came to comedy entirely by accident. He was a practising lawyer taking improv classes at Second City for the unromantic reason that he thought it would make him a better litigator. A friend who was opening for Bob Saget told him he was funny; he entered an open-mic contest the next day and won it. Almost fourteen years later, comedy has taken over his life.
His delivery is deadpan and deliberately slow — a habit that started in childhood, saying things under his breath to make friends laugh, and which sharpened during COVID, when Zoom shows forced him to sit through silence and wait for a laugh he could not hear. He has two specials: a squeaky-clean Dry Bar hour recorded during the pandemic to a spaced-out audience, and a Helium special a year later.
He hosts four podcasts. Singles Only, about dating, ran 400 episodes, won an award and was invited to South by Southwest; Stuck With Paul is recorded inside a moving lift; Why Are You Awake? is about being a night owl. He has toured as opener for Jen Kirkman and Demetri Martin, and his current work on stage is more personal than anything he has done before — including material about his father’s death, which he performs knowing exactly how a room reacts to it.
The part other press kits leave out
What you should know before you book him
Paul Farahvar is a working headliner with an unusually clear-eyed view of his own act — what it is now, what it used to be, and which of his instincts he no longer trusts. That candour is the most useful thing about him.
The slowness is deliberate
Deadpan is not a lack of energy; it is patience, and it needs a room that will sit still. COVID Zoom shows taught him to love the pause instead of fearing it.
Two clean specials, and a darker present
The Dry Bar hour is genuinely clean and bookable anywhere. His newer material goes to harder places — grief in particular — and he is upfront that not everyone wants it.
Not a crowd-work comic any more
He is best known online for crowd work and has fallen out of love with it, largely because of comics doing it purely to harvest clips. Worth knowing if that is what you booked him for.
He is not mean
A promoter once told him every seat sold except the front row. It rearranged how he thinks about his own reputation, and he now guards the difference between roasting and cruelty.
Shocking is not the same as good
He has no objection to shock comics — he loved Jeselnik — but insists the successful ones are great writers first. Offence is easy; funny is the hard part.
Two or three jokes, hammered for months
He is not a joke-a-day writer. He works a small number of bits obsessively until they are finished, then goes looking for the next thing.
For press · cleared for use with attribution
Quotable
01
“I thought I was just going to do it for fun, and it just took over my life.”02
“I wasn’t the funniest kid in class, but I would say things under my breath just to make my friends laugh.”03
“I used to be afraid of quiet pauses, but now I love them.”04
“The slowness is deliberate.”05
“I’m talking about death, and it’s not fun, but it’s honest.”06
“You hear people going oh my god, and I have to be like: yeah, oh my god is right. I’m on stage. It’s my show.”07
“Truth in comedy is what I was taught. You’ve got to be truthful on stage.”08
“I can go back to jokes I did ten years ago that crushed. But that’s not me any more. It’s not true to me.”09
“A lot of comics just try to be shocking because it’s easy to be offensive.”10
“If you’re willing to leave behind fifty per cent of your audience to talk about what you think is important — more power to you.”11
“I focus on two or three jokes and just hammer away for like two, three months.”12
“Every sitcom is based on Taxi.”13
“All the tickets are sold except the front row. That was a wake-up call.”14
“People are just doing it just for the clips and not being in the moment.”15
“It’s important to be honestly interested in what the person is saying. And listen.”16
“Work hard, be kind.”
Attribution: Paul Farahvar, speaking to The Comics Unseen, 2026.
Career
Selected credits
Stand-up
- Dry Bar Comedy hour — clean special, recorded during the pandemic
- Helium special
- Headliner; former opener for Jen Kirkman and Demetri Martin
- Touring theatres and clubs, working a new hour
Podcasts
- Singles Only — 400 episodes, award-winning, invited to South by Southwest
- Stuck With Paul — interviews recorded inside a moving lift
- Why Are You Awake? — on being a night owl
- Make Us a Mixtape — with Marty DeRosa
Before comedy
Practising lawyer. Took improv classes at Second City to become a better litigator, and never went back.
This kit was produced by The Comics Unseen. The interview and quotes are drawn from The Comics Unseen × Paul Farahvar, recorded 2026. Paul Farahvar and their representatives are free to use any part of this document — the biography, the quotes — for booking, press and promotion, with credit to The Comics Unseen for the interview material.
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