Tehzeeb "Tez" Ilyas ( ur, تہزیب الیاس; born 8 April 1983) is a British Pakistani stand-up

comedian A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting foolish (as in slapstick), or employing prop comedy. A comedian who addresses an audience dir ...

. He currently presents a

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming o ...

comedy show that mixes sketches and current affairs, called '' The Tez O'Clock Show'' on

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

Early life

Ilyas was born and brought up in

Blackburn Blackburn () is an industrial town and the administrative centre of the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The town is north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the Ribble Valley, east of Preston and nort ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a Historic counties of England, historic county, Ceremonial County, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significa ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

and is a British Pakistani. He started his career as a civil servant, after studying

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology ...

at Lancaster University where he also completed a master's degree. He then got a graduate job in the civil service in London.

Comedy career

Ilyas fell into comedy after

googling Owing to the dominance of the Google search engine, to ''google'' has become a transitive verb. The neologism commonly refers to searching for information on the World Wide Web using the Google search engine. The American Dialect Society chose ...

online writing courses and completing a week long open mic workshop, before becoming a comedian in 2010. In June 2015, Ilyas made a short film ''The Fast and the Fool'' as part of the ''British Muslim Comedy'' series, five short films by Muslim comedians commissioned by the BBC to be released on BBC iPlayer. Ilyas goes through the day in the life of a fasting Muslim, and shows how he copes with the stresses and strains of an ordinary day in the office during Ramadan. In July 2015, Ilyas performed at an

Eid Eid as a name may refer to: Islamic holidays An Eid is a Muslim religious festival: * ''Eid Milad un Nabi'', alternate name for Mawlid (, "Birth of the Prophet"), the date of observance of the birthday of the Islamic prophet Muhammad * Eid al ...

Special Comedy Night at The Comedy Store in London. In December of the same year, he performed at

BBC Asian Network BBC Asian Network is a British Asian radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station's target audience is people "with an interest in British Asian lifestyles", especially British Asians between the ages of 18 and 34. The station ha ...

's special comedy night, celebrating 50 years of Asian programmes on the BBC with a special comedy night in Birmingham. Ilyas has performed at the

Edinburgh Festival Fringe The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 dif ...

four times. In 2011, he was in a three-hander with Gary Tro and Kate Lucas called ''Gags Songs and Bombs''. In 2013, he was on the comedy reserve in the Pleasance Dome. In 2014, he performed for a week. Ilyas' debut show ''TEZ Talks'' resembles TED Talks, the popular conference lecture series Ilyas' show is inspired by his life as a British Muslim and deals with numerous misconceptions about Islam. His show is staged as an introductory seminar in becoming a convert to Islam with the audience playing the part of potential new recruits. This enables Ilyas to explain the intricacies of his belief system, while dealing with misconceptions arising from prejudice. He gives a series of mock-inspirational speeches on integrating into British society, and explains concepts like

jihad Jihad (; ar, جهاد, jihād ) is an Arabic word which literally means "striving" or "struggling", especially with a praiseworthy aim. In an Islamic context, it can refer to almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with Go ...

and Ramadan with 'unpatronising good humour', explores "British values" and debunks Islamophobic abuse. In August 2015, Ilyas performed the show at the Pleasance Courtyard at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In February 2016, he performed the show at London's Soho Theatre. A

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of Talk radio, spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history fro ...

series based on ''Tez Talks'' was commissioned, and has run for three series. Ilyas was awarded a place on the BBC's writers academy and has written and filmed his own scripted comedy short for Sky. He has appeared on both '' The Now Show'' and the '' Children in Need'' Comedy Gala for BBC Radio 4, and appeared on both ''

Virtually Famous ''Virtually Famous'' is a British comedy panel game show most recently presented by Chris Ramsey. In each episode, two teams of three panelists compete. The teams were, in the final series, captained by Vicky Pattison and Seann Walsh. The quest ...

'' on E4 and ''Live From the BBC'' on

BBC Three BBC Three is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was first launched on 9 February 2003 with programmes targeting 16 to 34-year-olds, cov ...

. He has appeared as recurring character 'Eight' on

comedy series ''

Man Like Mobeen ''Man Like Mobeen'' is a Television in the United Kingdom, British comedy-drama television series set in Small Heath, Birmingham. It is produced by Cave Bear and Tiger Aspect Productions for digital channel BBC Three (online), BBC Three and is w ...

'', alongside comedian and actor Guz Khan. In December 2018, Ilyas featured in comedy short ''Bounty'', a 'Comedy Blap' by

, which was set in his hometown of Blackburn. In January 2019, it was announced that Ilyas would host a new satirical comedy show on

, ''The Tez O'Clock Show'', broadcast from the dock10 studios. In June 2020, he released a special, ''Teztify'', on YouTube. In April 2021 Tez published his book 'The Secret Diary of a British Muslim aged 13 3/4'

Politics

In November 2019, Ilyas was chosen to take over the

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Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition (United Kingdom), Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the pol ...

during the Labour party leader's debate with Prime Minister

Boris Johnson Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as F ...

Awards and nominations

In 2011, Ilyas reached the final of the BBC Radio New Comedy Awards. In 2013, Ilyas was a finalist for Leicester Mercury New Comedian of the Year and won The Pleasance showcase The Comedy Reserve.

Personal life

In 2020, Tez Ilyas left his voluntary position on the comedy industry body, the Live Comedy Association, after admitting to 'unacceptable behaviour towards women', and wrote an apology on his Twitter account. Ilyas is a Muslim and is based in Clapham,

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. He is a Blackburn Rovers Football Club fan. Ilyas cites television shows such as '' South Park'', '' The Thick of It'' and '' Blackadder'', but most importantly the dry humour of the people of his home town Blackburn and his father, as inspiring him most.

References

External links

* *
Meet Tez Ilyas – Ed Fringe 2015
''Short Com''. 30 July 2015
INTERVIEW: Tez Ilyas, Tez Talks
FreshAir.org.uk. 8 August 2015
Tez Ilyas: Edinburgh Fringe 2015 interview
''Laugh Out London comedy club''. 12 August 2015
Fringe: Tez Ilyas interview
''Access All Areas Edinburgh''. 25 August 2015 {{DEFAULTSORT:Ilyas, Tez 1983 births Living people English Muslims English people of Pakistani descent English male comedians English stand-up comedians English comedy writers Muslim male comedians English civil servants Comedians from Lancashire People from Blackburn 21st-century English comedians ur:تہزیب الیاس