When it comes to discussing his career, the comedian Guz Khan prefers not to take things too seriously. The fourth season of his hit Bafta-nominated, critically acclaimed BBC sitcom, Man Like Mobeen, aired earlier this year. He’s about to embark on another national standup tour. He’s landed multiple major Hollywood acting gigs. And yet, he’s reluctant to talk about it all with much sincerity. “It’s just,” Khan says, “I can never get it out of my head that there are more important things in life. Some standups get a bit annoyed when I say this, as if I’m belittling what we do. I’m not. But look at the state of the world, our communities… There’s so much that’s more urgent than… [he puts on a smooth public school voice, one of many impressions he’ll drop into over the next two hours] ‘Hey, so I’ve got this idea for a really well-constructed joke.’” He laughs. “It just seems so goddamn silly to me.”
It’s a Monday lunchtime in late November. Khan, 37, and I are sitting in an otherwise empty Kashmiri restaurant on the outskirts of Coventry. We met in the carpark to find the restaurant closed. No bother. Khan walked straight inside and warmly greeted staff with a flurry of banter, salaams and bearhugs. He’s a regular here – he grew up with the owners. Khan only started comedy in 2014; the team knew him pre-fame. He cherishes this familiarity; Khan’s rapid rise to success has, at times, felt disorientating.
