Shazia is a devout Muslim, a woman and an outrageous comedienne. She explains how it’s possible
It’s early afternoon, and I’ve arranged to meet Shazia for an interview at the hotel in Limassol where she’s staying, just before she catches her flight back to the UK.
Unaware of what to expect from someone who shot to relative fame, just a few weeks after 9/11 on the line “My name is Shazia Mirza. At least, that’s what it says on my pilot’s licence”, I go along, curious to find about the “real” Shazia, one of the world’s few female Muslim comediennes.
I don’t know what I expect, but it’s not what I get! She’s nice. Contrary to the opinion that all comics deliver non-stop one-liners when you meet them, she is actually capable of a decent conversation, though admittedly, on this day, hers revolves primarily around the amount of wonderful sleep she’s had whilst in Limassol, and how relaxed she is. She was on the island to perform at the Londa Hotel for a charity event sponsored by the hotel and GB Airways.
It leads me to comment on her fairly hectic schedule which is posted on her website: a gig every three days or so for the next four to five months, and she shakes her head and tells me that she doesn’t put everything on there. “I gig every night,” she says, explaining that she tries out new material in smaller, more obscure places on the nights in between her “bigger” gigs. This woman is a workaholic!
But would you expect anything less from someone who has defied public opinion and family criticism to take a career path so far removed from what is expected of her?
Let’s face it. Born in Birmingham to Pakistani parents, she is over 30, unmarried (“No-one will marry me: I speak”), a devout Muslim (therefore does not drink and has not had, ahem…eh, well, is a virgin), studied biochemistry and used to teach science in a school in one of the roughest areas of England.
In fact, that’s how she got into comedy. The school was “so rough that the only way I could control the class was by telling jokes”, she says, with a deadpan expression that makes me think if I were a rowdy student, I wouldn’t want to mess with her.
It is the same expression with which she delivers some of her one-liners in a show that traditionally only lasts 20 minutes in the comedy clubs, but can last up to one and half hours elsewhere. That said, a couple of sideways glances and a cheeky grin flashed at Jochen Niemann, the hotel’s general manager ensure she doesn’t overstep the mark.
“Her material could be construed as a little risque,” Jochen says to me quietly prior to my meeting with her, but does so with a grin to show how much he enjoyed her performances. “Was she good?” I ask him. “Oh yes!” he says, and hurries to greet her out of the elevator.
I’m gobsmacked. She’s normal. Not a diva at all. In fact, she’s so far not a diva that I’m even taken aback. Not an inch of makeup, she’s dressed casually in leggings, a long cardigan and blinks heavily like someone who has just woken up.
“I haven’t even packed yet,” she comments. She’s leaving the hotel in an hour and a half.
We sit down and she asks me a question, then another, then another. I’m drawn into a conversation which is pleasant, forgetting it is I who should be asking the questions, but recalling that I had read that she could go up to a week without talking to anyone when on tour. When I do remember it’s me who should be asking the questions, she nods, and stretches her arms out, yawning unashamedly, as though to say, “I’ve done it all before. There’s nothing new I can tell you, but ask me anyway.”
It’s true. She has done it all. In just seven years, Shazia – whose idols include Richard Prior and Joan Rivers – has performed all over the world, in theatres, on TV and radio. The United States is a favourite destination, though Scandinavia and Europe are also regular stops. She has chosen a hard field in which to work, one which is alien to many women, let alone Muslim women – though she hopes to change this, acting as a role model for others to realise their dreams. She has taken on topics that verge on vulgur but slide into real humour. Real stuff, like the BBC’s F*** off, I’m a hairy woman”. The title says it all.
It’s been hard for her. She led a double life for a long time, only telling her parents the night before she appeared on BBC TV’s Have I Got News For You. Though they’ve been forced to accept it, they’re not happy about it. “They think all comediennes sleep with their audience afterwards,” she tells me without even a smile. It’s a rueful comment, clearly filled with a desire that they be happy with her career choice, yet knowing they never will.
I decide to fling in another question regarding one of the many awards she has won: the Asian Woman of the Year in 2002. She’s extremely humble. “Oh that,” she drawls. “In England you get awards just for being brown.” I laugh, and she barely sniggers. Maybe it’s because she’s used the line before, or maybe she still doesn’t believe that she’s as good as everyone says she is.
After all, she never planned to go into comedy, though when she looks back at her life, she can see that she was always a funny person. Her school life – where she was sometimes the life of the party – and home life – as a dutiful, Muslim child – were at complete odds with each other.
I get in a few more questions: worst audience? “Texas,” she answers after a little thought. She notes that she should stop going to a place that doesn’t understand or appreciate her material, all of which is original and contrary to popular opinion, not solely based on her Muslim lifestyle and experiences. Best audience? “Well, Limassol were pretty good,” she comments earnestly, and we discuss how starved Cyprus is of comedy in any shape or form.
“They were so grateful,” she said. “I could have said anything. They laughed non-stop.” But she seems pleased to have been so well-received in an industry which is so fiercely competitive.
The Limassol show sold out within hours of being announced in the press, almost forcing Shazia to give a second performance. This she very graciously did, even though both were for charity and she was only in Cyprus for a few days, and due to perform a major gig only days after returning to the UK.
Time is short. Only half an hour to pack and leave, which she doesn’t really want to do. She loves the weather, the pace, and the massages by Russian me. Last question, would she come back again? Shazia smiles widely and says, “Oh yes!”
