A University of Bristol student has made it into the final of this year’s Chortle Student Comedy Award. Muhsin Yesilada will take part in the event, which will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra and hosted by Bristol-born comic Mark Watson.
Previous winners include Joe Lycett and Phil Wang. Muhsin started performing stand-up 2021.
He said: “I still remember my first gig, I was very nervous and couldn’t stop pacing. I thought I was going to forget what I wanted to say, then I did forget what I wanted to say.
“In one early competition I was booed off within a minute and an American woman came up to me afterwards to tell me how bad I was. It gave me a kick up the backside and I went back to the same competition and won it."
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The 26-year-old plays up to five gigs a week and drives hundreds of miles for shows. This includes a recent, one-day 370-mile round trip to Rochdale. His comedy draws on his experiences growing up in a Muslim household with his British/Turkish family in Hertfordshire.
“A lot of my jokes are about my family experiences, about how living in a Muslim Turkish household goes down and those cultural differences. I think my family find it amusing that they are mentioned in my shows,” he said.
He also jokes about his PhD research, which focuses on misinformation and extremism. He said: “Doing a PhD has been an invaluable experience. I’ve been able to learn and publish papers and it’s improved my ability to analyse data and critically-appraise information.
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“During a PhD, you do a lot of presentations and you learn to be concise, pace your speech and grow your vocabulary. Studying psychology in particular gives you a good understanding of people and of yourself.
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“You end up learning about your own nature because you are constantly thinking about human behaviour. You get to the point where you realise you aren’t that important and if you have a bad set, people probably won’t remember.”
Having grown up watching comedy on BBC, he is keen to hear his set which will be broadcast on July 13. To win the competition, he has to beat nine other comics.
Prof Stephan Lewandowsky, chair in cognitive psychology at the University of Bristol and Muhsin’s PhD supervisor, said: “Good luck. I’m glad he is doing applied cognitive science en-route to his PhD - after all, humour requires lots of cognitive skills, from memory and timing to executive processes.”
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