The British Muslim Awards, now in their fifth year, publicly announced the finalists for their 2017 prizes today. Wonderful to see that I’ve been included on their shortlists. I’ve always suspected I’m one of the best Muslims in the country. It’s nice to have that officially confirmed. There are about thirty categories, and it’s truly an honour to be counted among such amazing finalists…
1 CommentWonderful news! The Comedy Cannon podcast, which I launched barely six months ago, has just hit the magic 100,000 downloads. It’s an amazing achievement. Being featured on the homepage of Apple iTunes on their podcasts section for the last six months has most definitely helped. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the many guests who took time out of their…
Leave a CommentI trained as a journalist with the BBC, and then developed my craft with British and American broadcasters. I’ve spent the last decade working as a marketing consultant. So I’m steeped in old media – print, radio, television. And, if I’m honest with you, I hate social media. I pine for the good old days when marketing yourself successfully as…
Leave a CommentFor the past week my new podcast, The Comedy Cannon, has been featured on the front page of the Apple iTunes podcast app. A week ago, it was being promoted in the Comedy section, and for a brief period before that it was on the Arts homepage too. However, it seems someone at Apple really likes the show as they’ve bumped…
Leave a CommentThose of you following me on social media will already know, but I’m happy to inform the rest of you that my new podcast, The Comedy Cannon, has now gone live. It’s actually been live for a week as I uploaded some older interviews into the feed to test it out. The first official episode under the Comedy Cannon name is now…
Leave a CommentIt’s one of the world’s most successful religions, with an estimated 1.5 to 2 billion adherents. Yet, thanks to misrepresentations of its tenets by its opponents, and by Muslims themselves, it’s a staggeringly misunderstood ideology. Even a cursory review of the Islamic belief system, versus how it’s perceived, shows a huge disconnect between what the scriptures say and what both…
1 CommentThree months ago I attended a paid “workshop” in Bristol, which promised to help new comedians improve their chances of winning comedy competitions. One by one, more than a dozen of us got up and did seven minutes of material to each other, and were subsequently judged, X-Factor style, on our performances by a professional comedian and a left-wing comedy critic/booker.…
Leave a CommentEdinburgh Fringe – the largest arts festival in the world – runs throughout August every year, and is the ideal summer holiday for wannabe comedians wanting to turn their dreams of a standup career into reality. A year ago I was bored, unemployed and purposeless. Late one night, while browsing eBay, I found a coach ticket to Scotland for less…
Leave a Comment“And the award for funniest blind lesbian of the year goes to…” I won an industry award last week: “Breakthrough Act Of The Year”. It certainly came as a shock given I’ve been performing standup comedy for less than a year. Don’t worry. It hasn’t gone to my head. I’m not deluded into thinking I’m the greatest comedian in the…
Leave a CommentIn the last nine months, I’ve spent most nights of the week travelling up and down the country performing at open mic comedy shows to audiences big and small. During those 150+ gigs I have, as you’d expect, met hundreds of the nicest, most intelligent and creative people around. Unsurprisingly, given what an intrinsically eccentric hobby I’m pursuing, I’ve also come across…
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