Bassam Wehbe: One Way Ticket 2026 in Dubai

Bassam Wehbe brings One Way Ticket back to Dubai this November: a one-man comedy-drama in Arabic, with a touch of French, about everything a person carries with them when they leave home. The Lebanese actor and director wrote, directed and performs the piece himself, and it plays the intimate Playhouse Studio inside the New Covent Garden Theatre at Mall of the Emirates on Thursday 19 November 2026.

A story about leaving, told by one man

One Way Ticket follows a man who has left his country and is wrestling with memory, with the past and the present, and with a future he cannot quite picture. Over roughly an hour, the play moves through the stages of an emigrant’s life: leaving, choosing, losing your way and starting again. Its Arabic title, تذكرة ذهاب فقط, means exactly what the English says, a ticket that only goes one way.

The tone is described as honest, expressive and fluid. Humour sits right next to emotion and reflection, so a line that gets a big laugh can be followed by a moment where the room goes quiet. In a city where most of the audience has arrived from somewhere else, those moments tend to hit close to home.

Who is Bassam Wehbe?

Bassam Wehbe is a Lebanese actor and director whose stage career has taken him well beyond Beirut. According to the Lebanese daily Annahar, he has performed in plays for both adults and children on stages in Lebanon, the UAE, Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt.

One Way Ticket grew out of an idea he first developed as street theatre, before he reshaped it into a full stage piece. The show drew on the experience of emigrants, and particularly of Lebanese people living abroad. It toured stages in Paris and in Lebanon before coming to Dubai, where it first played two performances in mid-June 2026. This November performance is a second chance for anyone who missed it then.

Bassam Wehbe in Dubai: the production

With only one performer on stage, everything rests on the writing and on Wehbe’s delivery, and this is close, personal storytelling rather than spectacle. The small team behind him shapes how that hour feels:

• Writer, director and performer: Bassam Wehbe, who also produces the show
• Artistic advisor: Fayek Homaissi
• Artistic and stage manager: Cosette Dib
• Lighting design: Michel Abdallah
• Sound: Ace Yaafouri

In a solo show, light and sound do much of the work that a cast and set would do elsewhere, marking a change of place, a jump in time or a shift in mood without a word being spoken.

Language and who it suits

The play is performed in Arabic, with some passages in French, so it is best enjoyed by Arabic speakers. Much of the humour depends on wordplay and on a shared sense of what it means to leave a Levantine home behind, which will not survive for an audience relying on gestures alone.

For Arabic-speaking residents, especially anyone who has moved countries for work, study or family, the questions the play asks will feel familiar. It is a natural choice for a group of friends who share that experience, and the short running time makes it easy to fit into a weeknight. If you prefer stand-up, see our wider comedy shows in Dubai; One Way Ticket sits closer to theatre than to a club set.

The Playhouse Studio at Mall of the Emirates

The Playhouse Studio is the smaller space inside the New Covent Garden Theatre, on Level 2 of Mall of the Emirates in Al Barsha. Its size suits a personal show like this one, as there is very little distance between the stage and the back row.

The theatre entrance is from the Level 2 car park, near rows A5 and A6, which is the quickest place to park if you drive in along Sheikh Zayed Road. By Metro, take the Red Line to Mall of the Emirates station and allow around 17 minutes to walk through the mall to the theatre. Bus 84 stops at Mall of the Emirates, about five minutes away on foot.

If your plans change after booking, the ticket listing allows you to pass your ticket on to another person.

Make a night of it

Tickets for One Way Ticket are on Platinumlist. For more on stage this month, browse our shows and theatre in Dubai, our things to do in November round-up and our full guide to things to do in Dubai.