Being left alone to work out how to make television is part of the secret to Guz Khan’s success, he has revealed. The multiple RTS award-winner was talking at the Birmingham premiere of the fourth and final series of the hit BBC comedy Man Like Mobeen.
RTS Midlands co-hosted a drinks reception before a screening and Q&A for fans.
The writers of the Tiger Aspect production, Guz Khan and Andy Milligan, were named Best Writers for the third year running.
Dúaa Karim, who stars as Khan’s little sister in Man Like Mobeen, won the Acting (Female) award, while the series also took the Craft – Production prize.
Hereford-based production company and charity Rural Media matched Man Like Mobeen, nabbing three awards for: Flesh (Animation); film-maker Luke Collins (Breakthrough Off-screen); and BBC New Creatives (Short-form).
When 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.
Coventry’s Guz Khan took home the Best Male Actor award for his performance in Tiger Aspect’s BBC Three comedy series Man Like Mobeen and the Best Writer prize, jointly with co-writer Andy Milligan. The two prizes, presented at the late-November ceremony, brought Khan’s tally to five RTS Midlands Awards in just two years.
Are you interested in a career in development or have an idea you want to pitch?
Watch the full panel discussion between Damian Kavanagh, Catherine Lynch and Kate Stannard as they share the qualities needed for a successful career in development and the key to grabbing the attention of commissioners.
“If you are defensive and precious about your idea, and you won’t let it evolve, whether that’s in your brainstorm or when you’re pitching to the commissioner, it’s just never going to go anywhere,” explained Catherine Lynch, creative director at Initial TV, which makes ITV gameshow Tenable.
Initial’s head of development Kate Stannard agreed: “What you end up seeing on telly is often quite different to the thing you first said in the room.”
The West Midlands is my home and I bloody love it. So why do I barely see it on the big old telly? Don’t get me wrong, I know everyone from the Spaghetti Junction to Bolivia loves Peaky Blinders – it’s a great show – but it hardly feels like it’s created here.
I enjoy some gangster shizz set in my neck of the woods as much as the next former criminal but, as soon as some of the characters open their mouths, I’m hearing accents that sound like a Welsh guy who has spent considerable time in Berlin, not Small Heath.
