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 paternal 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, he informally began performing with a comedy groups called The Men from ChaCha. One of their famous sketches was a dance parody of the Chippendales called "The Chappattidales". 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. In 1995, he was a finalist in the BBC Open Mic Award for The Stand up Show at the Edinburgh festival. 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.