You might have asked this question lately: where in the world is Sami Shah?
The answer is: he’s planning to take over Britain with a new two-part BBC Radio 4 series called ‘A Beginner’s Guide To Pakistan’.
“How did I land this gig?” says the home-grown comedian of ‘Black Fish’ fame (a Karachi-based comedy troupe), while talking to Dawn.com. “Just dumb luck basically!”
The comic continues: ” In 2009 or 2010 a producer at BBC called Ed Morris wanted to do a radio show about comedians around the world. He saw my stuff online and liked it. I ended up doing 7 minutes of comedy on a BBC 4 production over Skype. I guess my name stuck in his head. A couple of years later he reached out to me and said, lets pitch an idea to BBC for a show about the history of Pakistan with a comic touch. And that was it!”
According to BBC, he’s been asked “to give some insight into Pakistan’s history, heritage and culture.”
Shah’s trip to the UK for the show will be his first visit to country, where he’ll also be performing at London’s Soho Theatre, in a separate venture.
“If it [the series] goes off well, I’ll keep doing this kind of thing for BBC,” says Sami. “This year is my ten-year anniversary of being a comedian so its great!”
The show will be recorded in front of a live audience, with applications for tickets already open.
Shah currently lives in Australia, having moved a few years ago, where he continues to perform his stand up routines. He’s performed in Australia around 200 times last year. He’s also written a book: his biography: I, Migrant was published in 2014 by Allen & Unwin.
