Jeff Mirza

Jeffrey Mirza (born 3 February 1964) is a British stand-up comedian and actor.

Early life Mirza was born as Jeffrey Mirza and brought up in East End of London, England on 3 February 1964 to Pakistani parents. His family are from the Punjab region of Pakistan and are of Mughal descent. His maternal grandfather was Dr Mirza Taj Baig, a doctor with the rank of Major and one of the first South Asians to be a Commissioned Officer in the British Army. His paternal grandfather (Abdur Rehman Mirza) was a Zaildar (Headman for 40 villages) in the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir before the Partition. His family came from Pakistan and settled in the UK in the early 1950s.

Mirza attended Barking Abbey Comprehensive School. At the age of 12, he was caned (beaten with a stick by a teacher) to punish him for doing an impression of the television character Columbo. At the age of 14, Mirza had his first stint at live comedy when he told anecdotes about his summer holiday trip to Pakistan for assembly at Loxford High School. After graduating from the University of Westminster with a Bachelor in Civil Engineering degree and a master's degree in Engineering,

Stand-up career In 1993, Mirza won the Hackney Empire East West Quest and he went solo into stand-up and since then has not looked back. He has written pieces for magazines and is well known on the London comedy circuit. The same year (1995) he co-starred in a full-length show with Scottish Comedian Brian Higgins in a show called 'Haggis & Curry'. Since that initial success he gave up his job as a structural engineer and began work as a full-time stand-up comedian. In the Asian comedy field he has worked with and for the 'One Nation. ..lnnit!' Team based at Watermans in Brentford and has also played all the major comedy clubs and is a regular at Jongleurs Comedy Clubs. The show 'Walking with Muslims' coincided with the 2003 Iraq War and gained worldwide acclaim as Jeff Mirza appeared as dictator Saddam Hussein who was on the run at the time. He has played the comedy circuit in London including Jongleurs and The Comedy Store. He has performed all over the world, and is the first British Muslim comedian ever to perform stand-up comedy to sell out shows in Saudi Arabia.

He is regularly involved with interfaith dialogue between different communities and often called in to lighten-up and moderate contentious debates between multi-faith conservatives.

In July 2011, Mirza toured four UK cities in the Peace Youth and Community Trust's (PYCT) first Muslim Comedy Tour, alongside Humza Arshad, Prince Abdi and Nabil Abdul Rashid. From June to 28 August 2011, he presented a series of eight programmes in the world's first interfaith game show called Faith Off on the Islam Channel at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Underbelly, Cowgate, Edinburgh. He also performed his show Jihad: Heresy Or Hearsay. He has also appeared at the Leicester Comedy Festival and Glastonbury Festival.

Mirza is now developing a television sitcom and writing new material for a world tour. and Desi Boyz. In 2003, He is married and has children.

Filmography Television Year Title Role Notes 2000 Big Kids Doctor 1 episode: "Finding Hypnotist" 2001 Judge John Deed Dr. Wahid 1 episode: "Hidden Agenda" 2002 The Bill Shop Manager 1 episode: "Shop Manager" My Hero Pilot 1 episode: "Zero Tolerance" White Teeth Mo 4 episodes: "The Return of Magid Iqbal", "The Trouble with Millat","The Temptation of Samad Iqbal", "The Peculiar Second Marriage of Archie Jones" 2003 Murder in Mind Manji Patel 1 episode: "Cornershop" 2004 Top Buzzer Ali / Jaffi 1 episode: "Lee's Dinner" Dirty War Asian Landlord TV film 2005 Trial & Retribution Juror 1 episode: "The Lovers: Part 2" 2006 ChuckleVision Demolition Foreman 1 episode: "Off the Cuff" 2007 A Class Apart Shopkeeper TV film 2008 Doctors Jaswad Mukherjee 1 episode: "Making a Splash" 2009 Coming Up The Newsagent 1 episode: "Adha Cup" 2011 Doctors Jaswad Mukherjee 1 episode: "Unkindness of Strangers" 2012 Parents Shop Assistant 2 episodes: "#1.5", "#1.3" 2015 Cucumber Mr. Bhose 1 episode: "#1.2" Moone Boy Gundeep 1 episode: "Bells 'n' Smells" 2016 Plebs Tanjit 1 episode: "The Weatherist" Fleabag Shop Owner 1 episode: "#1.2" People Just Do Nothing Check-out assistant 1 episode: "Ipswich" 2019 The Cockfields Andre 3 episodes 2022 The Good Karma Hospital Amir Khan 1 episode 2023–present Juice Saif 6 episodes 2024 True Detective Veer Mehta

Film