Your route to the stage started with funny videos on Facebook. Was there any intention of it becoming something bigger?
I’m going to put 37% of it down to boredom. I’d just had my second little one and I remember a friend of mine saying: “My god, we’re so boring now. You’re a teacher. Our lives used to be crazy.” He said: “Man you’re so funny, what we going to do about this? What’s going to happen to our lives?” I thought, let’s just start making a couple of funny bits for each other. So that’s how it started, in WhatsApp groups for our friendship circles.
Then one of my mates who I grew up with was like: “Yo man, you need to show the world this stuff.” So it got uploaded on Facebook and YouTube. I remember thinking, if five people like it, then that’s maybe proof that we can be funny on a camera. I think it got 30 likes, so nothing special. The first one or two videos got local traction in West Midlands news. I ignored it though because I didn’t think it would go anywhere because where we’re from, you don’t do this kind of stuff. Lo and behold, six months later, everything had changed.
How was the transition from comedy videos to standup?
I need to be completely honest with you, I have a unique skill which is not thinking about things too much. If somebody said to me: “Hey man, being funny standing outside your local Lidl and going on stage with a microphone are different skillsets” it probably would have stressed me out. I didn’t have a manager, I didn’t have an agent, I just had my mates. There was no magic behind it. I wasn’t worried about what it is to be a standup, I just had a couple of funny stories to tell.
Can you remember a gig so bad, it’s now funny?
At a gig in Newcastle, the local thugs were so offended by certain things we said onstage, it caused a massive fight. Looking back, it was a crazy moment. The police sirens and multiple arrests after the gig made it something I probably shouldn’t be involved in again – but definitely one I won’t forget.
You’ve spent a few years working on projects in Hollywood. What’s it like coming back to the UK for the fourth season of Man Like Mobeen?
I feel excited that the audience who enjoyed it three years ago want it and they love it. That’s a very humbling feeling. We’re going to give them the magic like we always do. These are brilliantly established characters and the dynamics between them are just so clean and funny.
But I’m also a little bit sad because I stopped making the show in 2019, with the intent of the industry going out and finding the next crop of people who stumbled into this like me. That working-class girl sat in a council estate in Middlesbrough. Where is she? Let’s tell her story. That lad on the block in Leicester. Let’s tell his story. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen the next crop of Man Like Mobeens or “Gyal Like Syras” or whatever it is.
For me, part of the reason why we’re doing this again is to let people know that we’re still here and you can still make comedy like this. Myself and Gill Isles, the show exec who’s been with me on the journey so far, are now launching our own production company because we fundamentally want to make people able to tell their stories authentically. It doesn’t matter what background you’re from.
What have you learned from your time in Hollywood?
In the UK, you can be a performer and go about your normal business in a shop. When I got to America, I was walking down the aisles and everybody I walked past was talking about: “I have this script.” And I went to the next aisle and the person was saying: “I’m going to get that deal over the line.” The place really is an industry. Everybody has a foot in acting, performing or management. And it was such a juxtaposition to where I’m from obviously, because nobody bloody cares. In the Co-op, you walk about and people are talking about: “The gout’s really bad in my foot, it’s terrible.” So Hollywood was really amazing to be part of, but wow it’s intense.
You’re taking a show to the Harold Pinter theatre. What is it about?
To tell the truth, I don’t really know. I’m hoping to give people a good time. It’s going to be me and my guy Kane Brown. We promise that there’s going to be breathing room for the audience to be involved. But also, I want to tell people about what’s going on in my life recently and reflecting a little bit on my childhood, so it’s going to be a huge mash of things. But if you’ve seen me do what I do and you enjoy what I do, we promise you it’s going to be a good night.
Do you have any pre-show rituals?
If there’s a chicken fillet burger spot locally, we’ll do chicken fillet burgers. Before Live at the Apollo, when the smoke goes off and you’re meant to walk out, I was late for it because I was wrestling with my best mate. It tends to get quite physical backstage, a little bit rowdy, for no good reason. So we might start something new. We’ll bring some gloves, and if I get knocked out three minutes before I go on stage, it’s going to make for an interesting set.
Guz Khan is at the Harold Pinter theatre, London, 21-23 September.
