Shazia Mirza is a comedian in huge international demand. Dressed in her traditional Muslim headscarf, Shazia gained much notoriety early on in her career with her unique cutting-edge material and challenges to the Asian stereotype. She has performed for television, radio and theatre and most recently presented F*** Off I'm A Hairy Woman on BBC3. She is also a columnist for the New State
30 Jul 2007 12:00
Sam Stone
[This is archived content and may not display in the originally intended format.]
Writing and Publishing
Shazia Mirza is a comedian in huge international demand. Dressed in her traditional Muslim headscarf, Shazia gained much notoriety early on in her career with her unique cutting-edge material and challenges to the Asian stereotype. She has performed for television, radio and theatre and most recently presented F*** Off I’m A Hairy Woman on BBC3. She is also a columnist for the New Statesman.
Sam Stone visited Shazia at her London home where she talked about terrorism, lesbians and the Queen.
Sam Stone left school at the age of 14 without qualifications to support herself. She started working as runner on film sets. Quite glamorous, but she got tired after a few miles. She worked her way up the food chain and began producing tv commercials at the age of 18. She then decided to pursue a career in Media, discovered L.S.D and was found trying to fax herself to the Home Office muttering ... "Bill Hicks told me to kill myself. Bill Hicks told me to kill myself" Naturally, she quit her high powered job in advertising and her decent salary and started slinging plates as a waitress. She did other things too such as working as a cook on a cargo ship. Being the only English speaking person on the ship of Germans, she had to resort to war-film German. She didn't make many friends. She often had to mime what was for dinner. Chicken was her favourite. Spaghetti a bit more surreal. But the ship stayed in dry-dock and she started to feel she just wasn't going anywhere. She worked as a stripper for a number of years on and off, on and off - anything up to 30 times in a single shift. She also spent several years working as a Storyteller in schools, libraries and literature festivals - dabbling in myth, fairytale and a courdoroy waistcoat. She began writing comedy material in April 2006. [Photo: Claes Gellerbrink]
