The Amber Moment
The podcast that tells stories of remarkable careers.
The Amber Moment
Aatif Nawaz
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Aatif is a cricket commentator on the BBC's Test Match Special. He's also an award-winning actor, writer and stand-up. Here he talks about growing up in Wembley; discovering the Pakistan cricket team were "his guys"; an unexpected first gig at an Indian dance showcase; finding his voice as a performer; being "over the moon" at being locked in a stadium; achieving a boyhood TV presenting dream; and striving to leave a legacy as a "nice guy".
Hello and welcome to the In the Moment, a podcast that tells stories of remarkable careers. My name's Paul Howard. My guest today is Atif Nawaz. Atif is an award-winning actor, writer, TV presenter, and stand-up comedian. He created, wrote, and starred in the BBC sketch comedy show Muslimic, and his stand-up shows include artificial intelligence and instant gratification. See what he did there. And since 2020, he's been a regular contributor on BBC Radio's legendary test match special, providing cricket commentary to millions around the world. Atif, welcome to the show. Thanks for being there. How are you today?
SPEAKER_00I'm very, very well. How about yourself?
SPEAKER_03Very good. Thanks. All the better for speaking to you, of course.
SPEAKER_00Uh no, I appreciate it. I'll be looking forward to this. Uh and that's a lovely intro as well, actually. I forgot I always forget that I have a couple of awards. Like it feels like there's an award for everything nowadays, so like they don't feel as uh as prestigious as they once did. But uh I do have a couple of awards. That's yeah, it's nice, nice to remember that.
SPEAKER_03Well, uh, in the course of our conversation, feel free to expand on that. Tell us what they were and how meritorious or otherwise they are. But no, that'd be that'd be great. But look, as you know, I think what what I'm trying to do here on the amber moment is basically tell some great stories. And I think yours from the outside looking in is a is a great story. But look, every story has its beginnings, every hero of every story, that's you for the purposes of today, has his or her origin story if you like. So I'd love it if you could start by telling us a bit about your background, your childhood, education, upbringing, and any early influences.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, you know, my I guess it starts with my parents who were both born in uh Lahore and Pakistan. Dad came to to England in the 1960s. He was originally just coming sort of to visit, but something about England just he really loved it. He really connected with it. Um, so when he went back to Pakistan, met my mum, he said, Look, I hope you don't mind, but we're not gonna live here, we're gonna live in England. I really love this place. And you know, it it he must have really loved it because he was from a reasonably wealthy family in Pakistan, like they were they were merchants, it's a merchant family, like business people. But he thought, you know, let me come to England and try my luck. And like a lot of sort of first generation immigrants in those days, he was working in factories and you know, he was a bus conductor for a while, he was working on public transport, all sorts of things before my mum eventually convinced him that they should start their own business, which they did, you know, in the fast food industry, which is why to this day I have a great love of fast food. And when people when when my wife says to me, like, maybe, maybe give, maybe take a break from the fried chicken. I l I just say to look, it's in my blood. It's literally my blood. It is so I was given a really wonderful childhood by my parents, who were you know the kind of parents who kind of encouraged me to do whatever it is I wanted to do. I have an older brother and sister who are a lot older. So my brother's 16 years older, my my sister's 18 years older. So, you know, I came along a lot later in life, unplanned, probably. But I uh like they gave me tremendous freedom to sort of be creative, explore, let my wild my let my mind run amok a little bit.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And you know, like I I'm just so grateful to them for giving me a wonderful upbringing, just a really nice childhood, a lot of freedom. I mean, I was one a kid in the in the 90s, you know, pre-social media. Like I I loved my video games and things like that. But you know, when I when I discovered cricket, I think something fundamental changed. I kind of knew that this is gonna be a huge part of my life the moment I saw, like a lot of you know, kids my age at the time, I'm sure, was watched Imran Khan lift that Crystal Waterford trophy in 1992. Yeah, something changed. I don't know what exactly, but something I mean I wasn't even old enough at the time to understand the concept of countries and England and Pakistan or any of those things. I just knew that these guys in Lime Green, they're cool. They're gonna they they're gonna be my guys, and uh you know, for better or for worse, they've been my guys ever since.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um where was it that you grew up?
SPEAKER_00Uh so I grew up in northwest London. I've lived there pretty much my whole life, give or take a few stints in other countries and other parts of the UK, but generally the Northwest London is always home. Every time I'm coming out the tube at Wembley Park Station, I sket I get that sort of wistful, nostalgic music in my head, you know. But like you're like you're coming home. I feel like I'm like Skylar Grays. I'm coming home. I feel like I'm coming home when I get to get to Wembley Park Station. So, like, yeah, yeah, Northwest London, that's home.
SPEAKER_03Beautiful. I'll I'll be up in your neck of the woods late this evening watching England versus Uruguay. So here we are.
SPEAKER_00Fun.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Tell us a bit more about those early years then and and maybe a bit about your uh schooling education, that sort of stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I went to uh uh you know, I like in the first part of my life, like when I was at primary school, my parents would take me to Pakistan every year, frequently for like a two, three, four, five months on the bounce sometimes. Because you know, with primary school in those days, you had a little bit more flexibility, so they were happy to just sort of take me and like you know, just get that culture in, which is why I managed to, you know, maintain uh A a very strong connection with the culture, but B just the language, and you know, like uh I turn up and I like to think I turn up in in Pakistan, throw on a Salwar Khamis and disappear into the crowd like Hannibal Electra in silence of the lambs. Like he can't even he can't see me.
SPEAKER_03But I what a disturbing parallel.
SPEAKER_00It's a great, it's a great film. Sir Anthony Hopkins, one of my favorites. Sure. So I I you know I I had that growing up, but then I remember when I started secondary school, one of my teachers, very early doors, tell my parents, like, no, this is this is not gonna happen. This kid's got high potential, you can't disturb his education six months at a time. So now these trips are coming to an end. So I remember turning 10, 11, and then I don't think I went back to Pakistan again until I was sort of 24.
SPEAKER_03Oh, right.
SPEAKER_00So it was a there was a really long gap in between. But uh, I I was one of those kids who had a really good time at school. Like, you know, some people kids were like yeah, not just because uh of the academics, which you know, I was one of those really irritating, lucky people who didn't have to study a lot, but it just sort of came to you. But I also was like popular, or I played in all the sports, and you know, like I was popular with my teachers and my peers, which was sort of un unusual in those days. Yeah, I was just one of those kids who really loved being at school, loved performing. Yeah, like the performing thing came to me in school as well. With my drama teacher, Mr. Roy Baker, may you rest in peace. He was the first one to think, Oh, you you've got something, kid. And he and he encouraged me to audition for the school's musical performance of Little Shop of Horrors. Oh, yeah. Uh yeah, so that was my first, and I remember it was really meant for the six-form kids. Yeah, and I was in year nine at the time, but they uh but he said, No, no, no, you you can do this. And he also gave me the role of the oldest person in the uh in the production, which was Mr. Mushnick. Mr. Mushnick owns the flower shop and Little Shop of Horrors. Spoiler alert, he gets eaten by a giant plant. And I uh we had a giant, it was really I I I loved that whole pro process of sort of rehearsing and wardrobe. And I was eaten by a plant on stage every night for for a week, and it was so much fun. But it was Mr. Roy Baker who first first sort of woke me up to the fact that there's this thing that you can do called performing. Yeah, you know, up until then my life was sort of like cricket, football, studying, and now I'm kind of like, oh, okay, acting. This is interesting. So that probably lit something in me. I mean, I still stayed very strong with the academics, got very good GCSEs, really good A levels, uh, went to a good university, did my undergrad, did my postgrad, but like the acting bug was always there.
SPEAKER_03Brilliant. So would you say you were a sort of a natural show off, and then when the stage came along, you thought, oh, here's it like a codified way of doing that.
SPEAKER_00I don't think so. Like, I I you know, over the years, particularly when the stand-up comedy kicked in, like a lot of people sort of asked, Well, he's just a funny guy, you're naturally quite funny. I don't think of myself as naturally funny, like I think I can be performatively funny. So, like if I'm on a podcast or like uh a panel show or just an environment where you're sort of expected to perform and be funny, I can sort of rise to that occasion if I need to. But my default, I don't think, is like comedic. Like I know people who have funny bones. Like if you think of someone like Michael McIntyre, for example, yeah, you know, having spent some time with him, like he'll wake up in the morning and he's Michael McIntyre and he's that guy, you know. Yeah, um, you know, Omid Jalidi, he's that guy, he's funny, he's you know, there's so many great comedians who are just like naturally funny, and they could they they could have been funny as management consultants, but they decided to do you know, they were just funny. Whereas like for me, it was the acting fed into my stand-up comedy. It's almost I'm not quite playing a role, but I'm certainly playing a character, you know. Like that's that's where it came to me. Offstage, you know, I don't think I was one of those people who was ultra hungry for attention. Okay, I'm sure I uh liked a bit of attention uh at times for sure, but generally I think it was really the the craft of it that appealed to me that the side of sort of building a performance and building uh some entertainment for for your audience.
SPEAKER_03Interesting. Interesting. So you've done your schooling, had a great time, lit the lit the fuse in terms of being on stage, that sort of stuff. You went and did your undergrad and postgrad, did you say?
SPEAKER_00Where was that? I did. So uh Royal Holloway was my undergrad and probably the most significant part of my educational life. Like it was just where I just really learnt about things, not just literal things as in academic things, but just sort of life a little bit. Um, made some of the best friends that I've ever had. And you know, just yeah, I remember my first day of of university, I met this guy who'd go on to become one of my best friends, and he was Welsh and Chinese, he was half Welsh, half Chinese. I'd never in my life met a person from Wales at that point, never mind a Welsh Chinese person. Sure. So Mark became a really, really good friend of mine, and like I remember I just couldn't like it was really bizarre. Like, people think about sort of race and identity these days in very complex terms, because I mean that's where the the the you know society's gone and the debate is gone, the conversation's gone, and that's great. I I think it's wonderful that people have these diverse experiences. But in those days, this is 2003, it was a very different time, you know. So my first day of university, somewhat sheltered North London kid, all of a sudden I'm meeting this, you know, a guy who looks Chinese, but he sounds Welsh. Yes, you know, it was like it took me a minute to process Mark. Yes, and what's pr what's bizarre is like now I can't imagine life without him. So, like, you know, it was great fun, studied uh English literature, which was a great passion of mine. To this day, you know, literary fiction is just something I adore. Like, I'm one of those people who scours the book of prize list. I'm always sort of reading stuff. I'm not a snob about reading, by the way. I'll read anything, I'll read manga, comic books, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, trashy fiction, whatever, but I like uh I I I was drawn to like sort of the the great literature of the 18th and the 19th century. So yeah, so I really enjoyed sort of studying that and getting into it. I don't think it had any sort of vocational value, and I was one of the rare ones really, because I think most people who I went to school with my peer group, they wanted to do things like medicine or psychology, engineering, like something with a vocation attached. Okay. But I was kind of one of those like, oh, I like the idea of knowing about that. Uh rather than this will help me get this job. Uh, maybe maybe I wasn't thinking very practically at the time, but it was it was great fun.
SPEAKER_03Just hearing you talk there. I mean, I'll I'll be asking you right at the end for some recommendations for things, but as as you've touched on literature there, do you have any great recommendations either for uh authors or particular works that that we should all be having a look at?
SPEAKER_00I tell you what, I I just finished reading uh Rebel English Academy by a Pakistani author called Muhammad Hanif. I really enjoyed that. I mean, I read it in like three days flat, it was such a lovely, lovely book, lovely story. If I was recommending something, I wouldn't go straight to Rebel in English Academy. He's written a book called A Case of Exploding Mangoes, um, which is spectacular. It's a spectacular book. It's a great title. It really is. So it's it's actually it's based on the assassination of General Zia, who was um one of the military military rulers of Pakistan in the 70s. Now, I'm not really one of those like the motif of army stuff is not something that interests me. Like I watch Saving Private Ryan in the cinema, but I don't really like some when I see sort of army things, like it's not it's not uh a moral thing, it's just a taste thing. I'm not I'm not really into the war stuff, I don't really want to read about military stuff, blah blah blah. Yet this book that's which is almost entirely entirely in a military setting, it really just it spoke to me, and it was really just his style of writing. It's so beautifully alleged allegorical, and um, yeah, I I I recommend that. Case of exploding mangoes.
SPEAKER_03Fantastic, fantastic. So you've spoken about in your university days of having this, if I can quote Jarvis Cocker, thirst for knowledge and kind of almost a like the thirst for knowledge in in and of itself rather than that having any vocational value, as you put it there. So maybe you can talk to us a bit about how all of those early experiences, including your university days, helped you on the path towards what became your career.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I I think at universities the first point where I where I learned that stand-up comedy was a thing that I could get into. I mentioned Norman Jalidi, he was the guy that I watched on live at the Apollo in two 2003. I think it was a set that he did there where God was it that yeah, it was a sort of his first legendary one where he he did a he did a whole thing about you know race and politics and religion and everything. And it was like the first time I watched somebody that that looked like me, you know, like skin colour. Yeah, and like I was like, wow, you know, I I would like to do that. That would be I think I think that would be fun. Yeah, and I sort of thought about it for a long time. I didn't action it for a while, but that was the first time I came across it. Yeah, and thought that's the first time the thought struck my mind because my plan was always I'm gonna be an actor. Uh or maybe at that point I was thinking maybe I'll be a cricket player. In my sort of late teens, I discovered that I had a decent talent for for cricket, like that was something that I was reasonably uh skilled at, just not as skilled as as I needed to be to make uh to the level that I wanted. But I wish I'd just stuck with it a little bit longer than I did. I'll tell you about the cricket in a sec. But yeah, at university, like it was um, you know, like the performing the performing side sort of took over. Although I did have a very good year, my first year playing cricket at university.
SPEAKER_03I've seen I've seen clips of your batting technique, and it's very good, let me tell you.
SPEAKER_00That's very kind.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so you've had this sort of early spot. I but I think I'd know the the omid um set that you're talking about, and it is brilliant. Fantastic. Didn't he used to be a management consultant, in fact?
SPEAKER_00He mentions it in the set. I don't know if he was in real life, but he says it in the set. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Hasn't he got that line where he goes that I used to do this? Um but now I'm giving stand-up comedy a go. He goes, and let me tell you, it's going really well.
SPEAKER_00That's exactly the set. That's exactly like you know, that set I think I could quote it to this day from start to finish.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Fantastic. It is a brilliant set. I really love that. Um, okay, so that that has sort of made you think, oh, perhaps that's a a viable career for me. So so talk, what were the next steps or the next stages? You said it sort of percolated for a bit, it didn't happen immediately, but how did that?
SPEAKER_00Well, there was I could I can tell you the exact moment. Like, yeah, I was attending a friend of mine had put together an Indian dance showcase event and uh asked me to just come and sort of watch and support the show. So we me and my friends we went to support the show. It was an Indian dance showcase event, and just before the event started, their CD malfunctioned that they were gonna use. Right. The CD in those days was you know, like a C to burn a new CD in those days took about 45 minutes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, for like this is this is I'm aging it here, but it you have to get a physical blank CD, put it in your computer, and and start it burning with the tracks that you needed. And if you you were lucky, there would be no mistakes on there. Yeah, depending on the quality of your writable CD disc or rewritable CD disc. But anyway, like they needed to kill 45 minutes at the start of this show because people were there, they were ready to watch. There were about 200 people in the room. So the organizer sort of panicked and came over to me and said, Can you do something? I said, What do you want me to do? Take the mic, just talk to people, just do whatever you gotta do. Help us kill the 45 minutes. I said, Okay, all right, I could do that. So, you know, I did, and it went well. I don't remember exactly what it was I did. I think it must there would have been a lot of crowd work involved, but it went well enough for me to think this is this was good. This was really, we need to do more of this. So I did. I I started working out how to find open mic comedy nights in London. I came across a guy called Jay Rechsteiner who ran a series of nights in London called the Comedy Bin, which were sort of open mic nights, and he he gave me a bunch of slots, and you know, I went to those. I was lucky enough to to get to see other people who thought I was good enough to go into other clubs. I mean, I was pretty ropey to be fair in the beginning, like very ropey, but I just was really enjoyed it, so I didn't want to stop doing it. And I had the luxury at the time of not relying on it as a vocation, it was just something I was doing for fun. So I was oh, I'm gonna keep coming back here. This is fine. I'll come back every week with something new and try something else out. Like in the beginning, at least, it was quite I was I think I was being quite deliberately provocative, which wasn't necessary, but that's what I thought I had to do at the time. Those were you know, it was like Jimmy Carr was coming into prominence at the time. So I was like, okay, so that's what it takes, that's what you've got to do. You've got to be like aggressively rude or whatever. Yeah, you know, I quickly worked out that that wasn't the way to do it. I had to find something that was more my vo my voice, as they say in stand-up comedy. But it took me a long time. I think I always tell people I think it took me about seven years of being rubbish to actually get anywhere. So about seven years into stand-up comedy, I think I made I started to make some progress. But it all started with that Indian dance showcase.
SPEAKER_03Well, I wanted to hop back to the Indian dance showcase, if I may, because you handed the mic and said, Can you feel 45 minutes? You seem quite blasé about it today. I don't know if you were. I mean, did you have anything at all prepared or or how did you go about that?
SPEAKER_00I had nothing prepared, but I was feeling confident. I don't know why I I was so confident. I had no reason to be, I had nothing to fall back on. But I think there was a little bit of you know, the ignorance of it all makes you feel confident sometimes because you don't really know. Like now, yeah, you know, 20 plus years into stand-up comedy, I like now now understand the industry and like, oh god, you gotta do this, and uh, what about this? And you can't do that. Like, you this is just a no-no, and oh, but but at the time I knew nothing. I'm going in cold, I can do whatever I want. It's a blank slate, there's no insecurities, anxieties, nothing in my mind really to hold me back. So yeah, I I I don't remember exactly I have no idea what I said, uh, but I'm pretty sure a lot of it was crowd work and talking to people in the crowd and things like that. And it, you know, it was fine. Like it did the job at the time. I mean, they were ready to go by the time I was done. So I tell this to people sometimes. I don't think I ever really get nervous when I'm performing stand-up, especially now, because now, you know, I mean I said I was rubbish for seven years. I like to think I'm good now. I never say amazing or brilliant or fantastic, I like to think I'm good now. So because I feel like I'm good now, I'm confident enough to know that if for whatever reason it doesn't go well tonight or tomorrow night or the day after, it goes well 99 times out of a hundred. Yeah, it probably wasn't my fault specifically. I like it.
SPEAKER_03This yeah, it's the old Stuart, it's the old Stuart Lee line, isn't it? If there's a problem if there's a problem here tonight, it's not on this side of the stage.
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, it's that but it might not be the audience, it could be a million different factors, right? You know, the cable's not working well in your microphone, maybe uh, you know, there's some random distraction, maybe somebody's causing a there's loads of things that can go wrong in a comedy club. Uh over time you learn to roll with them a little bit. But for me, like I never really worry about it. Like I prepare, uh you know, I'm doing an honest bit of work, I've done my prep, I've put together a set, I've tested it, and I'm going in front of a paying audience. So I I feel confident in my ability to entertain them for the 20 minutes or you know, longer if I'm given longer. So I I never I never really get nervous about it anymore. I didn't back then either.
SPEAKER_03That's great. And can you talk to us a bit more about finding your voice, as you mentioned there? So you had these seven years in early years of comedy, you had these sort of ideas at the outset that you should do it this way or that way that weren't necessarily right for you. Talk about how you found your voice.
SPEAKER_00Well, I had to think about what was important to me. So my first solo show that I'm credited with is Muslims Do It Five Times a Day. So that was my first solo show that I did in the Ed at the Edinburgh French Festival. But that wasn't my first solo show. My first solo show was actually a show called Talk Roti to Me, which was a play on Jason DeRulo's Talk Dirty to me. Now, in that show, I focused on song parodies. So there were a sequence of song parodies. The show was loosely structured around the theme of food and the way people eat and the way I like to eat and my city eating stuff. And it was just a city hour of comedy. And I I enjoyed it. You know, I remember speaking to some comedians at the time who went on to become great influencers, great friends. And they, you know, they would say things to me like, Is that is that what you want to contribute? Like, that's what you want to say. And I remember thinking, yeah, I was being quite bullish. Like, you know, I think it's fine. People, you know, have tough lives, even back in 2013. People had tough lives. Uh, you know, it's nice to go and have like an hour's entertainment that is just a bit mindless sometimes. But the point was made to me is like, yes, there's nothing wrong with mindless entertainment, but you are div, you're an academic, you've got things to say, you have an opinion and a perspective, a very specific perspective on society. It would be criminal if you didn't express that. And uh, and I thought about it and I thought about it, and just at the time there was a bit of a a rise in Islamophobia, you know, globally, people with sort of these wild misconceptions about Muslims and things like that. And I thought, okay, so what I'm gonna do in my comedy now is try and correct incorrect perceptions or make a comment on what's happening in society that makes me angry. So it started with Muslims doing it five times a day, which was you know, about it specifically about Islamophobia and misconceptions about Islam. It went on to art. Artificial intelligence, which was a second one, which was about an over-reliance on technology. I should probably bring that back. Actually, I think it's more appropriate nowadays than it was then.
SPEAKER_03You were ahead of your time there, I think.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I know, but ten years too early. Then I did The Last Laugh, which was about you know tragic stories and comedy. I don't think I fleshed that out as well as I should have done. That's probably my weakest show. And then I did instant gratification, which was um about the modern culture of just getting what you want all the time, like immediately. It wasn't supposed to be a critique on Gen Z's. I think somebody watched it back recently and told me, oh, was this your comment on Gen Z culture? I said, no, it's not, it wasn't just like you don't have to be Gen Z to use Uber Reats. Like everybody everybody like expects things delivered now, and there's things like Amazon and and it and the way it translates into your real life is like have you ever been on the on hold for more than 10 minutes and just thought, oh my god, I'm gonna write a tweet about this company and tell them how much you know, like uh recently I was made to be on hold for four hours with Gutter Airways um because of the obviously there's a big situation in the Middle East. So you know, I was made to be on hold with them for four hours and I got angry a little bit, but also I kind of reminded myself that there was a time where these kind of things happened, and you know, maybe it's a good grounding experience for me just to remember that you know a little bit of instant gratification therapy is never the never a bad thing. But yeah, I mean so the point is from that first from that Muslims do it five times a day show onwards, and I really only count four solo stand-up comedy shows because each of those had its own sort of tour of varying size, but they each had their own tour. So I count those. Talk routy to me wasn't a tour, but it was performed at the Leicester Square Theatre 10 times.
SPEAKER_03I love that venue.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh, I I love it too. It was the small so this is though in those days they had a smaller venue called the Lounge, Leicester Square Theatre Lounge, which was like a 70 seater. Okay. So I performed there. In fact, I'd never do the big room at the Leicester Square Theatre until instant gratification in 2019. So that's when I managed to sell out the big room for the first time uh in my career. I was I was in the audience for one of the things. There you go. Yeah, there you go. So yeah, like that, you know, that was the idea is to slowly and it wasn't like a conscious thing. I think it's just one of the it's one of those things that naturally happen where I wanted to start making a comment on things in society, you know, and and obviously maintaining that comedic, you know, that's the that's the platform, it's comedy. Like first and foremost, you've got to make people laugh. Yeah, you can sort of point to absurdities and they can they can be like that. That's kind of where the voice came in, I would say.
SPEAKER_03So you're you're on your way a good way along that path of finding your voice. And so alongside that, were you aware of having any sort of kind of long-term plan or or something you were trying to achieve in your career, like a mission or something, like a big picture thing? Did you have any of that? Do you think what what sort of drove you, would you say?
SPEAKER_00I did, I did. I had a like what I wanted to do, the reason I would go to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival every year is because I wanted to be discovered by some producer or something who would give me a big opportunity. What that opportunity looked like, I didn't know. But I'd been writing scripts, I'd been writing formats for TV shows, I've been writing all sorts of things, and just in the hope that something would come up, and that it was sort of that instant gratification tour. The show that you came to, I'm pretty sure, is the same one that was attended by the then head of BBC Comedy, a gentleman called Chris Sussman. And myself and my writing partner at the time, uh, a guy called Ali Shalom. You know, we'd been working on a sketch comedy show about British Muslims called Muslamic. Yeah, and it was, you know, like we liked it, but nobody got it. We we tried to get meetings with people, every channel, nobody's interested, nobody gets it, nobody wants sketch comedy, whatever. And like it was a tremendous shame because Ali's had a huge background. He'd built a massive, like in the hundreds of thousands of followers on social media, even in those days. And he'd done it exclusively by making excellent short form sketches. Yeah. And he'd included me in a couple of them. We decided that, you know, we made a good, we complemented each other's talents quite well. Me as a sort of conventional stand-up, him as a sort of new age comedian um for this digital age. You know, we thought we could combine our talents. So we worked on that for a really long time. And then Chris, who had come to see me perform, happened to have a meeting on the books with Ali. And in that meeting, I don't know what Ali did, but he managed to pitch him on Muslamic, and Chris said, Alright, we'll give you a we'll give you a shot. And then then came the panic of like having to put it together. Because we had a script, we sent the script to BBC Comedy, and BBC Comedy sort of said, We don't get it. Like, what is it like we don't understand what you've put together here. So I remember Ali and I having a conversation thinking, all right, what we need to do here is we need to show them what we mean. Like they're not understanding the words on the page, we need to show them because this is so performance-driven, it's so character-based, yeah, that it that it's really hard to bring the pages to life. And I think if there's any sort of young writers out there, when you're writing something charactery, just remember that words on the page that will be lifted by a performance won't immediately be apparent to a script editor or somebody who's reading it or somebody who's going to commission it. Like it's very hard to sell performance pre- uh unless you're a pre-existing performer. So if you're like, I mean, if you're uh David Mitchell, yeah, or you know, you're like Steve Pemberton or you know, Reese Shearsmith, the guys who did it inside number nine, like you could come up with a blank piece of paper and give it to the BBC and they'll clap and give you like 20 episodes of something because they know that whatever you you're you know, they know what you're capable of as a performer. Yeah. But commissioners don't know if you're a brand new person, they have no idea what you're capable of as a performer. So your words have to really represent. Anyway, me and Ali decided we'd film the whole thing ourselves, just on our phones with each other in the most gorilla way possible. Yeah. And I know this is something people do all the time now on social media, but at the time it was quite unheard of. So we we we did it like that. We put the we put the we put together a 45-minute edit of what we uh what we thought the show looked like. And at that point, the BBC were like, yeah, we get it now. We get it now. And then we ended up making the show and everybody loved it.
SPEAKER_03Fantastic. And and think thinking about across those years of your career, Atif. I'm gonna ask you to put to put your modesty to one side, if you wouldn't mind, because I want you to think about I want you to think about the kind of the skills and talents and character traits that you possess that have helped you to get where you've got in your career and helped you be successful that perhaps other people don't have. What are your kind of magic tokens?
SPEAKER_00I mean, I think these are things that I developed over time. So I won't say I always had them, but they were things. So the first thing that I the one thing that I think I've always had is uh is perseverance, like the idea of continuing, even when it looks a little bit hopeless, just continue. And the one thing that you know, it was it was one of the things that my my dad's taught me, which is you know, just enjoy what you're doing. Like don't put an enormous amount of pressure on the thing that you're doing. Like this has to become my livelihood. I have to become a comedian tomorrow, and this is how I'm gonna become a millionaire, and I want to I want to get a 10 Netflix specials and I want like DVD sales. I want in fact I'm gonna single handedly bring back the DVD format that's been dead for 10 years. Like, you know, I like you you have to just love the thing that you're doing. I did stand-up comedy for seven years, I mentioned earlier, without I think being very good. Now, it's of course it's not true. Like, I was slowly improving all the way. I was doing a lot of stage time. I got to host a comedy show every week on Wednesdays, you know. So I was slowly, slowly, slowly making incremental improvement and just by being around it. But also, I enjoyed being around it. I love my peers, I love comedians, I love the company of people who are witty and sharp and can do things that I could never do, like impressions and things like that. Like so, sorry, to answer your question, I think that like having that that sort of unconditional love of the thing that you're doing, that really like not expecting anything immediately back, like, oh, this is gonna make me a millionaire, this is gonna make me like I think it it can be quite freeing. The the other quality that I think stands me in good stead now nowadays is not looking sideways too much. So not like, oh man, that guy's getting that gig, and I'm not getting that gig. Like, I'm supposed why does that person get that opportunity? I don't get that opportunity. Look, here's the truth about entertainment in the UK and actually everywhere in the world. It is not a meritocracy, right? The best person for the job does not always get the job. So it's not if you think there's like an under-15s, under-19s team, under-17s team of comedians, there isn't, right? Uh this is not how comedy works, it's not how entertainment works, right? There is a lot of luck involved, a lot of right place, right time, a lot of networking. There's millions of factors that need to go in your favor, as well as talent. I would say talent is the the last thing nowadays. It helps to be talented, but you know, there's a lot of talented people out there sitting at home, uh not doing any work. So, like I would I would say just it's very important to remove yourself from that sort of hamster wheel of expectation. Yes, and just let things happen. Obviously, you do all the right things. Yeah, you go to auditions, you know, you go to the comedy clubs. There's loads of things, productive, useful things you can be doing to further your career. Of course there are. But don't think that if I do one to ten, I'm gonna be a star. It doesn't work like that. No, it doesn't work like that. You know, so like anyway, I manage to just enjoy. Like I'd I'm not I don't go by any traditional things in comedy, like people in comedy, you know, usually you build a show, take it to Edinburgh, take it on tour. Build a show, take it to Edinburgh, take it on tour. I don't do that, not anymore. I uh I kind of perform when I feel like it, when I get excited about material. I've got very good relationship with all the all the comedy clubs in this country that I like, and they they put me on stage pretty much whenever I want.
SPEAKER_03And uh so what why did you decide not to not to continue with that formula that you mentioned there?
SPEAKER_00I didn't want to start resenting comedy. Like I I don't I want to do it for the right reason. I don't want to turn it into like a business. I mean, I think I sort of have turned it into a business. I do a lot of corporate events now, but the idea is you do the corporate events and it frees you up to kind of do whatever it ill uh you know. I can go take that gig for 30 quid at this random new comedy club because the corporate gig will pay me two grand. So I can you know it takes the pressure off me and I can just do it that way. But I think the for me, once I'd done Muslamic, once we'd received like my dream when I was a kid was to write and star in a TV show, done it, done, got it made, completed it. So I now have the f everything else feels like a bonus. Like I didn't know that I was gonna get this parallel career in cricket, I didn't know that was gonna happen, but I was very happy just sitting on a sofa in Nunhead talking about cricket, you know, with my with my with my friends. Yeah, so you know, like to get airlifted from sofa to special with a bit of gorilla in the in between. Like I, you know, like I didn't know that was gonna happen. There's a lot of luck involved in that, a lot of timing involved in that as well. Yeah, and again, like I said, uh maybe there were there were a hundred people that were better than me that didn't get the gig. But then I can promise you there's a hundred people worse than me that are far above me in this totem pole as well. So, you know, again, as I say, it's just not a meritocracy. You have to just take what you get and and make the most of it, do all the right things, do all the prep, but like do it with a smile on your face.
SPEAKER_03So you mentioned there the BBC and cricket commentary and test match special. Talk a bit about, if you wouldn't mind, that journey then from what is predominantly a stand-up comedy career, I guess, to kind of where you are today.
SPEAKER_00So I did some county cricket stuff way back in 2017. I was doing some stand-up somewhere, and somebody at at Middlesex saw me and they're, oh, you should come and do some like guest commentary for the sounds fun. I've done a bit of commentary myself, actually. Have you heard of Test Mat Sofa? No, they have not. Oh, never mind. So, you know, I I'd always enjoyed it. Like I got this invite. I was playing this charity game of cricket somewhere. You know, I got this invite to come and do Test Match Sofa for the first time, which was you know like an informal alternative punk rock version of Test Match Special. I didn't even really know too much about Test Match Special at the time, or indeed cricket commentary on the radio. But I was invited to this thing, really enjoyed it, and then I just kept doing it for fun. Eventually, one of my friends who's also a former World Cup winner and award-winning broadcaster, Isha Guha. Oh, yeah. Um, so she calls me and she says that the BBC have just commissioned me a podcast. Do you want to be on it with me? I was like, Yeah, yeah. You know, she's like, It's just a pilot, but we'll get you 250 quid. I said, Yeah, mate, up 250 quid is a lot of money to me. I'm down.
SPEAKER_03So I went Imagine Imagine getting paid for being on a podcast.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, hey, dream. Anyway, do carry on. So he I was like, yeah, no, I'm well with the moon. Yeah, let's do it. I wasn't thinking about long term, I didn't know what it would lead to. I wasn't even thinking about the prestige of the BBC or anything. I was thinking about 250 quid of a monitor at the time. But you know, she asked me and I was very grateful. So I went. And what I didn't realize was I was sort of being auditioned as this long-term character on this podcast, and I'd made a really good impression in that first episode, so much so that Adam Mountford, who is the head of cricket at the BBC now, but at the time was the lead producer of Test Match Special, said to me, You know, would you be interested in doing some cricket commentary? Uh and I was like, Yeah, I would. He said, All right, well, look, we've got we've just got the rights to the IPL in England. How would you like to do some of that? It's off tube. I know you've done some off-tube commentary before, so I was like, Yeah, okay, off tube is basically your remote, you know, and and in those days the BBC did a a bit of that. Yeah. So yeah, I got a chance to do the IPL. I must have made a good impression there because they gave me more and more opportunities. And then in the the COVID summer of 2020 is when I made my full-fledged test match special, test match debut on the the Pakistan when Pakistan toured England fittingly. I was given my debut there, and from then on I've been a regular on uh test match special and it's been just a a wonderful experience ever since.
SPEAKER_03What were your early memories of that series? Because I remember that series and looking back on it, and I I think this about lots of I don't know, have I got news for you if you watch old episodes from COVID times and they're all there with screens in between? I have to switch it over because it's like it's just it's a bit depressing watching those things from that time. And and my memories of that series against Pakistan in 2020, and it was brilliant the Pakistan toured, by the way, at that point. But you just think back to the empty grounds, and it was just all very sterile. But what are your memories of making your debut on Test Match special? Uh doing that series.
SPEAKER_00This is gonna sound so weird, but I mean the whole country, the whole world was in turmoil, right? Everybody was struggling, and uh, you know, everybody at the ground as well. I remember like my colleagues, my broadcast colleagues, they were all sort of unhappy. They were kind of complaining, they wanted to be with their their wives, their kids, their husbands, their other halves, their you know. I was over the moon. I couldn't have been happier. Are you listening mate? Listen, you've locked me in a cricket stadium, right? Nobody can go home. Nobody can go home, right? You have to stay at the stadium for like 15 days. No one's allowed to go home. I'm there with Phil Tuftnell, Jonathan Agnew, I'm there with uh with Wuzzy Muckram, Shane Warren, God rest him, uh Michael Holding, Mark Ramprokash, Azar Mahmoud, like all of these, all of these guys, normally you'll see you'll see them at the cricket, you'll see them at the cricket, they'll say hello, and then the match is done and they'll go off and do their thing because of course they're gonna go off and do their thing. But now they're stuck in a cricket stadium with me. Do you understand? They can't go anywhere, they've got no one else to talk to, they have to talk to me. So this is it. If you want any company tonight, my friend, you can go and watch some COVID TV, or you can sit with me in this bar and chat. And and we did, and it was just so glorious. Like to get I mean, could you imagine just sitting there chatting with Shane Warne, you know, uh chatting with like you know, was he muckram, all these guys, like you know, there were legends. I had posters uh posters of these guys on my wall as a kid growing up with Shane Warren. I had this really embarrassing exchange actually. Where I was I well, I tried to just be very cool with everybody, you know, just like, yeah, how's it gonna be? I'm not no selfies, no none of that. We don't do that. No, I'm all good, don't worry, I'm cool. We're working, yeah. I'm I'm a peer of yours. Yeah, yeah. Like, you know, blah blah blah. And then I just remember that Shane Warren was outside smoking a cigarette at one stage, and um, you know, I just kind of hung out around him while he was on the phone. And then when he got off the phone, he's like, You're right, mate. And I was like, Listen, I just want you to say, Shane, you know, you've always been a great hero of mine, one of my favorite players of all time. And yeah, I've just uh really, really enjoyed watching your career, and I just wanted you to know that. And he was like, and he using a bunch of F words, he said something. I really effing appreciate that, mate. I really effing appreciate that. Really effing appreciate that in a very Australian, very sort of gruff Australian way. So lovely. Uh he was really lovely. He's you know, people can make you feel a bit weird about complimenting them in that way, especially if they've been complimented a billion times in their lives. But he was um he was so sweet about it, and uh, I'm really glad I got to tell him that actually.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, I can well imagine. What a lovely highlight that. And so then the years since 2020 have been very different, thankfully, in many ways, although it sounds like you wouldn't mind a return to those days. But talk talk to us a bit about how how your career at the BBC has has evolved and changed and and other things that you've done with them.
SPEAKER_00Well, I was uh given an opportunity to do a few really cool things. I got to tour Pakistan three times with the BBC, two test series and one champions trophy, yeah, which was you know a great honor, great fun, really loved it. I've been given the opportunity to to host and present the highlights on on BBC television, which was you know one of my you know like when I was a kid, I would record I would tape those highlights on VHS tapes. Yeah, you know, I would literally you know get new VHS tapes every night, whatever the to uh the test match highlights of the day are. I'd record them. It's usually Rucci Beno or Tony Gregg or someone like that uh hosting them. And now I'm doing it. Like, you know, I was like, wow, like how am I you know I I really it was really one of those full circle moments, like you know, the only way I could describe it to like other people is imagine watching Spider-Man as a kid, and then in your mid-30s you become Spider-Man. So it was like you know, I I I I was so thrilled to get that gig. It wasn't a long-term gig, so it was I was only filling in for Isha because she'd got the opportunity to do to do Wimbledon. So I was filling in um what for the England-New Zealand Test Series, and it was just fantastic. Like, just I mean, it didn't mean a lot to a lot of people. I don't think people understood. I think you had to be a specific kind of person to understand why that gig was so meaningful, you know. So I did that, I really enjoyed that. I got to go to the the T20 World Cup this year in Sri Lanka. Yeah, uh, I couldn't get a visa for India in 2023. I was supposed to go there that day, but understanding origin. That's another story for another one. Yeah, that's that's a whole podcast, isn't it? Yeah, but it's uh it's yeah, I mean I I got to do some really cool I I worked on, I know it's very unpopular, but I worked on the hundred, five years of the hundred. I've done every finals day for the BBC, yeah, which I'm very proud of. Getting to do five finals, every single final there's ever been of the hundred, I've been put on the broadcast and the T20 Blast Finals day as well. So I've done that four times. Four times in the last five years, I've been on Blast uh Finals Day as well. So I mean I get I what I'd like to think is with all the opportunities that the BBC gives me, all these high profile gigs, it just makes me think I must be doing a good job, right? Because they have so many talented cricket commentators to lean on. There's so many people around me, and I'm just in awe of them because they're so good. But like I managed to get all these opportunities, it must mean that I'm connecting with the audience uh in the way that they want me to, and I'm I'm I'm doing good. So that that feels good.
SPEAKER_03And and thinking about your the totality of your career at If, do you would you say that you have a strong set of kind of personal values of their behaviors and you know principles that you kind of treasure that you apply to your working life?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. I try and be a good person. I know that sounds very generic, but like I mean, I'm I'm like a practicing Muslim guy, right? And like one of the major parts of my faith is to be helpful and pleasant. What what I would love, Paul, is like when it's all said and done, when I'm gone, I'd love for people to remember me as a nice guy, first and foremost. Somebody who was nice, somebody who tried to lift people that were around him, somebody who tried to, you know, create positive energy, positive vibes for people that were around him. You know, I'm everybody has their moments. I I'm sure I've had mine. But I I like to think that generally I've been a good guy, you know, a a fun guy to chat to, to hang out with, to get advice from, like somebody people have leaned on and in difficult times in their lives. Like I just wanna, you know, just like I I want my footprint on this uh in this uh lifetime, in this in the sphere of human existence. I want my footprint to be one that you know everybody that ever encountered me to remember fondly, positively. So that's kind of my my sort of philosophy in life is just be a be a good dude, be a good dude. I don't know. I mean it doesn't mean like people walk over you or be a walkover or be any kind of like no no no and obviously stand up for yourself and stand up for what's right and you know, and do all of those things, but fundamental things, and uh I don't think any of that is in conflict with being a good person. So I yeah, try and be a try and be a good person.
SPEAKER_03And and again, thinking about the sort of story of your life and your career, you're the hero, of course. And every great story, as well as having a hero, will have an anti-hero. I'm not asking you to name names here unless you particularly want to, but it might be people, but it might also be structures or systems or prevailing ideas. What are the things that you think you've had to overcome, the barriers you've had to overcome to be successful in your career?
SPEAKER_00I mean, there's many, many barriers. Prejudice is one thing, like you know, sort of racial prejudice has definitely been a thing. But like it's one of those things that I've I think uh I've used it in the most positive way possible. Like, you know, my airport security sketch, which was in uh you know, in Muslamic, like that's based on a million experiences I've had at airports where I've been detained because of the colour of my skin, my ethnicity, all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_03Is that your most famous sketch, would you say? Because uh it's certainly one that I've seen a lot on social media.
SPEAKER_00I was up there for sure. You know, if if I had the kind of eulogy or that kind of funeral service where people played your work at them. I hope I don't, by the way. I hope it's very understated, but uh if they were doing an O bit for me on the BBC, I reckon I reckon that's the sketch they'd play.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Okay, anyway, sorry, I interrupted. You were talking about uh sort of anti heroes and barriers.
SPEAKER_00No, I mean like I mean I don't think there was a a specific figure in my Life. But like I think I had my challenges, but I overcame them. You know, I'm a big believer in things like therapy and asking asking for help is never a bad thing. Like if you going through a challenge, I think you know, specifically men of a certain generation were always brought up with this idea of like, you know, no, like be strong, power your way through everything, never cry, never, you know, show emotion. No, I don't think there's anything wrong with ever asking if you need help, you don't need to be embarrassed about it. In fact, I think it takes great bravery to ask for help. So ask for help. Uh I asked for help when I needed it. You know, I've been through some very difficult things in my life, the most difficult things, but like I think it's quite telling that I don't ponder on them a lot because I've also had some positive experiences and I'm able to channel my memories through that. And yeah, you know, the challenges are there, but like again, if I can go back to Islam again for a second, sure like it's like it creates the it's got the framework within Islam that A, if you believe in God, like God will never give you more of a challenge than you can deal with. So, you know, so if you look at like horrible amounts of suffering in the world, obviously, you know, you see peop children with incurable diseases and things like that, and you just think, oh, that's so horrible. And I've heard people say things like, you know, what kind of God would allow that to happen? And you know, I respect everybody's way of thinking, but the way I've been taught to think is I don't know that, but like, you know, there's everybody has their own challenge, their own uh things in life. And I I gotta focus on mine. And like when I have something extremely difficult to go through, I can reflect on people who have even more difficult things to go through. And then it's comforting the thought that even whether you believe in God or you don't, the c it's very comforting the thought that the challenge that you've been given in life will never be greater than what you're capable of dealing with, right? So it's a it's a thought, you know, it's not you know, it's not one that maybe people universally will agree on, but for me, it's like it it it maybe it is just a comfort, but it is a comfort. And also the the freeing thought, the most freeing thought in Islam is what's meant for you can't be taken from you. So your destiny, the destiny thing, right? So for example, if you're meant to win an Oscar tomorrow, right? Like nothing can stop that from happening. Like if you if you're meant to win tomorrow, even though they don't happen in March, uh like if you're meant to win tomorrow, it will, you know, it will happen tomorrow. Like for so if for example, if I go to an audition and my mate goes to an audition and I don't get it, but my mate gets the gig, right? It was always meant to be his thing. I couldn't take it from him. If it was meant to be mine, he couldn't have taken it from me. So again, it's such a freeing thought because it just removes all the anxiety, all the sort of the tantalizing, just torturing yourself, like, oh, why didn't I get it? Why didn't I get it? Because it wasn't meant for me, it was meant for someone else.
SPEAKER_03Maybe my mum's a Muslim secretly, because she often says, Whatever happens, it'll be for the best. And I go, it's good again, it's a freeing thought to think that. It is, it is. Yeah, again, thinking thinking about this your story, if you like, and and over the years and your career, and once more you don't have to mention people's names, but you're welcome to if you want to. I I wanted to ask you about allies, because no one can do it on their own. Yeah, so so which people or groups or institutions or whatever have have kind of been real supporters and allies that have helped you to get to where you've got.
SPEAKER_00No, there's like countless, countless allies. So Isha Guha, I give an enormous amount of credit to because she opened the door to mainstream broadcasting for me. Um, Chris Sassman, I will always be grateful to for giving me my first opportunity to make a show on television. You know, Ali Official who helped make the Ali Shalom is uh Ali Official is his stage name, Ali Shalom is his real name, for putting that show together with me and helping getting getting it you know where it was. And again, there's loads of people who I taught me the craft of cricket commentary as well. Like, you know, Nigel Henderson, Nigel Walker. You know, I spent so much time with these guys. Tom Clark, who got me on Tess Mat sofa in the first place, Daniel Norcross, who I'm still learning from uh to this day. Just lovely guy to hang out with, even beyond the sort of the bluster. He's a lovely guy. So I, you know, there's there's countless allies that I've had. You know, Adam Mountford has given me my current job, which is which I love. You know, like it's there's there's a million allies out there that a million times have done nice things for me in the world of comedy, in the world of cricket, in the world of acting, in the world of television, like you know, it's impossible to make any headway in these industries without somebody uh at some point holding your hand and helping you cross a difficult road. And I'm just lucky I had a lot of those guys.
SPEAKER_03Brilliant. And I want to ask you now about a sort of happy ending, and I don't by this mean the end of your career. You I'm sure you have many more successful years ahead, but when everything, when all of your sort of talents, all the like the allies are in place, when everything clicks and comes together, what does that look like? What what does what does the world look like when when you get it right?
SPEAKER_00When everything comes together, you should have a feeling of completeness, like satisfaction. You know, I was talking to a com a a friend of mine who's uh also a very famous comedian and also a big ally of mine, Tezilias, actually, I have to say, he's he's a superb. But I remember having a conversation with him at one point where he said to me, Look, I hope I get to do loads more things. I hope I get to do more TV, I want to do film, I want to do this, I want to do that. But if it all ended tomorrow, I'd be very satisfied with the back catalogue that I'm leaving behind with this body of work. And uh I love that philosophy. And uh I don't think I'm quite there yet. I'm nearly there. Like I think I I think I'm there in the sense that if this was it, this was it, no problem. I got to do some really cool stuff. Yeah, like I'm a lover of cricket, a lover, somebody who adores cricket, and I get to work alongside all my heroes. I never take it for granted. I've done that walk into the media center at Lords, and I've seen the people just sort of grumbling on day three of a county championship match. It's never me. I'm always it's always it's always a thrill. It's always a thrill to professionally work in cricket, especially as a broadcaster or a journalist. Every day that you can go to work and and smile and know that you have people's backs or people have your back is uh is a win.
SPEAKER_03So it's not the end, obviously. So what what is next for Ative Noahs? What's in in both the near and the far future?
SPEAKER_00Well, there'll be a lot of cricket this summer. The home summer is gonna be great fun. I'm really excited about Pakistan's gonna be touring again for a test series. So I'll I look forward to that. Uh hopefully I'll get to be a part of the broadcast. Uh, it'll be an interesting year with the hundred in this uh season, the first time with sort of the private ownership. Yeah, the blast, which I love. I'm gonna do some work for the Birmingham Bears again. I've been doing work with them, they're gonna be called the Warwick Show Bears again this year, I think. I had the opportunity to host their live stream for the last five years, it's been great fun. So I'm gonna uh be back with them. And I'm working on a brand new, a new stand-up comedy hour. I've been working on it since last year, but it's dramatically changed directions as uh as the world has changed around us. So it will be in the same vein as as previous shows. But I think it's gonna it's gonna try and be a little bit more introspective, a little bit more about what's going on in here. My main focus is just for it to be as funny as possible. I don't want to become preachy or anything like that. Like if I happen to get preaching into my comedy, that's different. But the first step is it's gotta be funny AF. So um, like I've got I've got to get it there. And so I'm working on that. That will hopefully be a thing. And then alongside that, I'm trying to keep building my just just like you, trying to build my digital profile. Yeah, I'm putting content, cricket content out there. I've got a Instagram page at cricket with Artif and a TikTok at RTF Noir's Official on which I'm posting. Loads of absurd and ridiculous takes on the game of cricket. So that's just I need to keep me going.
SPEAKER_03Go and check those things out. That sounds great. And when you think about your life outside of work, we'll take family and friends and loved ones as as red that they're important in your life. But outside work, what are your other kind of passions, hobbies, and interests?
SPEAKER_00I like going to the cinema. I like uh like I know it's sort of a lost art these days because of you know streaming, but uh you can find these wonderful independent cinemas still in London and and go watch cool, funky films that you might not get to see elsewhere. I love to read, like reading is one of my favorite things. I'm on the hunt for a book at the moment, which I'm finding very difficult to find in sort of like I don't like ordering books online. Sometimes it's inevitable that you have to order a book online because you can't find it in the books. But I really like you know, one of my favorite things as a kid was to go to HMV or Tower Records or Virgin Mayor stores in those days, and like, you know, scan, scan, scan, scan, scan, scan, scan. Oh, found it.
SPEAKER_03It's the senses, isn't it? It's like you want to touch it and and smell it. Books smell of something really nice.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, but and it applies to everything DVDs, music, CDs. And my favorite thing as a kid was to take the 83 bus to Wembley High Road, go to Woolworths, and pick out a CD single for myself. Kids, do you even know what a CD single is? Unbelievable. Anyway, but you could buy them, and if you were lucky, it was$1.99, not$3.99. Yeah, you could buy yourself a CD single and and and listen to that on repeat while doing nothing else on your CD player. Yeah, and I like the sort of physical buying of things. Um, I like that process. I I've really got into manga in the last few years. Okay. I'm a Japanophile, I love all things Japan and and uh Japanese culture, but manga and anime are two things that I'm really obsessed with. So um have you been to Japan? I read a lot of manga. I have I've been to Japan and yeah, it it's one of my favorite places in the world. I as a cultural experience, particularly for somebody who lives in the West, I think it's it's something that everybody should try and do. Like it's it's proper, uh like it feels like a different country. Like if you're in if you live in London, yeah, you get to Paris, all right, all right, you know, Paris is it's a city, yeah. You see, you see a thing, oh you go to New York, okay. I see it fair enough. Even if you go to like you know, different parts of Southeast Asia or whatever, you land in Tokyo, you now feel like you're in a proper, you're in a different place. Yeah, there's neon lights, different language, Japanese being spoken everywhere. Very uh easy language to learn, by the way. If you have a learning language, yeah, yeah, Japanese is very straightforward to learn. At least, I mean, I mean I'm not saying it can be a conversational masterpiece, but you can learn like 10 phrases of Japanese very easily. And yeah, you know, people are really wonderful, it's such a beautiful place, Tokyo in particular, and also Kyoto and Saitama, and there's so many lovely places in Japan. Yeah, so I I really love everything about it, but the uh the anime and the um and the and the manga are two things that I really enjoy, and I put a lot of my spare time into that and and video games, but retro video games specifically. I'm not really into all this PlayStation 5 stuff. I I'm I'm I'm back in the Super Nintendo Ness era. That's me.
SPEAKER_03Brilliant. And then finally, finally, as we are on a podcast, Atif. I'd love it if you can give us a podcast recommendation.
SPEAKER_00Well, this one's pretty good. This one's very good. You're very good. There's a billion podcasts out there. I I um you know I try and stay away from cricket ones just because like I think when I'm not watching cricket, I try and give myself a little bit of a break from cricket, and my partner will tell you that I'm a bit consumed by cricket, too consumed at times. Favorite podcast. I tell you what, recently I've started getting into the Louis Thoreau podcast. Okay. So I like I like Louis, I like his documentaries. So I've been listening to his podcast, even though he speaks extremely slowly. So what I would recommend is listening to his podcast on 1.5 speed. Um, but he's he's very he's so insightful and he's just a great man, national treasure for sure. So um I I can't believe I don't have a better podcast recommendation. No, that's all good.
SPEAKER_03That's all you gave us and you gave us some book recommendations early. So I did have books.
SPEAKER_00Books I could talk for for days, but like podcasts, not as much, sadly.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's all good. It's all good. Listen, Atif, thank you so much for your time and even more for sharing such incredible stories about your remarkable career. It's been an absolute pleasure.
SPEAKER_00No, it's been my pleasure. Thanks for having me, man.
SPEAKER_03Join me next time on the Amber Monument when we'll be hearing another story of another remarkable career. Until then, stay Amber.