Profile
Guz Khan in Man Like Mobeen
Guz Khan, star and co-writer of Man Like Mobeen, is hot property. Roz Laws describes his rapid rise from school teacher to multiple RTS award winner
W
hen he’s not in the jungle penning quips for Ant and Dec, Andy Milligan is the co-writer of Man Like Mobeen and has a running joke with the sitcom’s creator and star, Guz Khan. As they work on the hit BBC Three series together, Milligan asks him, “Can you tell me what every Muslim in Britain will think of this joke?” This is because Khan has been dubbed “the face of British Muslims” – a result, Milligan points out, of it being far more likely for a bearded, practising Muslim to appear on our screens as a suicide bomber than as a character like Mobeen. Khan has a wry laugh at the label and declares: “That is a crown I do not want to wear. It’s tricky, as realistic depictions of Muslims on TV are still so few and far between. If there were another five shows like Man Like Mobeen, it would take the pressure off. And I do feel the pressure of trying to represent people as fairly as possible. “I hope my community is proud that they have a voice that’s honest. I’m sure that there are doctors and lawyers in Small Heath [the Birmingham suburb where Man Like Mobeen is set] saying, ‘This is not our story! – but they can tell their own.” The third series of Man Like Mobeen recently dropped on BBC iPlayer. Set and filmed in inner-city Birmingham, the comedy follows Mobeen Deen, a young man with a dark past as a drug dealer who is trying to set a better example for his much younger sister in the absence of their parents.
14
The real deal role model
