Jimmy Carr has spoken about his recent appearance at the Riyadh Comedy Festival.

Speaking on the The Louis Theroux Podcast Carr opened about about the festival in Saudi Arabia. Comedians including Carr, Louis CK, Dave Chappelle, Andrew Maxwell and Omid Djalili have been criticised for appearing there due to the country's record on human rights.

Carr said to Theroux: Yeah. I played it. I loved it.

Louis: Tere's been a lot about so-called ‘sports washing’. I guess this would've been perceived as laughter washing or I don't know what some comedians elected to stay away and spoke out about it.

Jimmy: Yeah. Some people didn't want to go, fine.

Louis: It was rumoured that they spent between 250,000 to more than a million, I think.

Jimmy: On what? On what people got paid?

Louis: Yes. How much were you paid, Jimmy?

Jimmy: Okay. I was paid, I would say a commensurate amount with selling out an 8,000 seater room. So it's a big room. I didn't ‘get paid’, I earned it, is what happened. But here's the thing. I think we need to give up on the idea that the Middle East becomes Western Europe. The Middle East is a very different place. And the same people that will tell you diversity is our strength will tell you, don't go there. They're not like us.

And the thing that I like about Saudi Arabia is the direction of travel. Look at where it was 10 years ago. Look at where it is now. The direction of travel is pretty good. They kind of want to be Dubai, which… you could have said this about Dubai 25 years ago. Don't go there. They're not like us. And you go, it's a different culture. It's a different way of conducting a society. So the idea of going, don't go there because they're not like us. Well, I play 50 countries around the world. I'll go where the audience are.

 The Louis Theroux Podcast is available on Spotify now..