The Comedy Cast Interview with English Stand-up Comedian Bilal Zafar

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Today you'll be hearing from Bilal Zafar.

We started off the interview talking about Bilal already preparing new material for this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival, we spoke as well a bit about Bilal family history, his mother and father moving from Pakistan to Britain.

Bilal's family had just celebrated a wedding in the family so I was curious to ask him some questions about that as I know next to nothing about Muslim religious ceremonies.

We spoke about how and why Bilal got into comedy and he got straight into his comedic influences growing up, Vic & Bob, Alan Partridge and in particular Chris Morris with Brass Eye, The Day Today and Blue Jam. Bilal also spoke about him going to university to study script writing and deciding that the best way to get noticed and get things done was to get a name for himself on the stand-up comedy scene so he took the plunge.

We talked about his first gig, going blank and using it to his advantage and how he had to battle a bit with shyness before getting used to being on stage.

Bilal won the 2016 NATYS (New Act of the Year Show) award so we had to speak about that and all the doors that it has helped open for him, we spoke about him getting signed by an agency thanks to it and how they came in handy during his Edinburgh Fringe Show.

We had a chat then about Bilal getting into some acting roles and he revealed he'll be appearing on Rob Delaney & Sharon Horgan's show Catastrophe in the future, we spoke too about comedy panel shows, their popularity and a little about how people are auditioned for them.

We spoke then about last year's show Cakes and how it was all kicked off by his brother joking around with some racism he'd seen on Twitter one day. That got us talking about social media and the power that it has and how people give it more weight that it probably deserves.

Finally then we chat about how Bilal likes to work on his act and his writing process and how the writing is the real work compared to what we see on stage.

Bilal Zafar

Hello and welcome back to The Comedy Cast: today you’ll be hearing from Bilal Zafar.

Bilal’s just been nominated for a Best Newcomer Award in Chortle‘s 2017 awards, along with previous Comedy Cast guest Tom Ward.

We started off the interview talking about Bilal already preparing new material for this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival, we spoke as well a bit about Bilal family history, his mother and father moving from Pakistan to Britain.

Bilal’s family had just celebrated a wedding in the family so I was curious to ask him some questions about that as I know next to nothing about Muslim religious ceremonies.

We spoke about how and why Bilal got into comedy and he got straight into his comedic influences growing up, Vic & Bob, Alan Partridge and in particular Chris Morris with Brass Eye, The Day Today and Blue Jam. Bilal also spoke about him going to university to study script writing and deciding that the best way to get noticed and get things done was to get a name for himself on the stand-up comedy scene so he took the plunge.

We talked about his first gig, going blank and using it to his advantage and how he had to battle a bit with shyness before getting used to being on stage.

Bilal won the 2016 NATYS (New Act of the Year Show) award so we had to speak about that and all the doors that it has helped open for him, we spoke about him getting signed by an agency thanks to it and how they came in handy during his Edinburgh Fringe Show.

We had a chat then about Bilal getting into some acting roles and he revealed he’ll be appearing on Rob Delaney & Sharon Horgan’s show Catastrophe in the future, we spoke too about comedy panel shows, their popularity and a little about how people are auditioned for them.

We spoke then about last year’s show Cakes and how it was all kicked off by his brother joking around with some racism he’d seen on Twitter one day. That got us talking about social media and the power that it has and how people give it more weight that it probably deserves.

Finally, then we chat about how Bilal likes to work on his act and his writing process and how the writing is the real work compared to what we see on stage.

Bilal Zafar’s website: here

Bilal’s Facebook: here

Bilal’s Twitter: here

Bilal’s YouTube: here

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