By Aneesa Malik
Unanimously recognised for his rather quaint dinosaur impression, imran Yusuf appeared as the headline act in yet another overwhelmingly successful Desi Central Comedy show at The Glee Club, Birmingham.
Iranian, Irish comedian Patrick Monahan carried the show through with his uncontrablle outburst of humour, which kept audiences entertained from start to finish. Others on the line up included, Mo Tamar an Arab American, Mickey Sharma and Mo the Comedian, all of whom appealed to their unfortunately wretched personal experiences for our laughter. 
Before the night of comedy began, I sat down with Imran to find out who the man behind the skinny suit is; how he made his way onto the comedy scene and what influenced his intellectual style of delivering humour.
Born east Africa, having lived in the US for a year and being brought up in the UK, imran has certainly experienced the throws of life. He elaborated: “Life experience has definitely informed my comedy. Comedy is all about talking about what you know and about discovering who you are as a stand-up. So being east African, Indian, Muslim, it has informed my comedy a lot.”
Asking imran about his educational background, he said: “I was a total school dropout. I always wanted to be a video games designer. I worked in the games industry for many years, but I always wanted to be a stand-up. So eventually, I made that switch, because you get unmitigated creative freedom. As long as you make people laugh, you can pretty much do what you want. You wouldn’t trade that creative environment in for anything, because it is immediate gratification. That beats sitting behind a desk.”
“The moment I went on TV and started making money, they were really happy. Prior to that, they never really knew about me doing stand up. I was doing it whilst I had a full time job. They had more of an issue with me working in the games industry. When I was at school, everyone else was doing their homework and I was in my bedroom playing super Nintendo.”
“I trained a lot on the London circuit. I have always worked on the mainstream. I am lucky, having been brought up in London, I’ve had access to the best circuit in the world and that’s where I’ve been able to sharpen my skills, amongst comedians that I’ve looked up to.”
Imran spoke of many comedians who inspired him to join the race, but the comedian he looked up to throughout his childhood was without a doubt, Chris Rock. “He’s incredibly outspoken about social injustices that a lot of people aren’t very articulate about. He’s very good at empowering disenfranchised communities. It’s incredible what he’s done, from a socio- political standpoint. In my eyes, he is a legend.”
“My biggest achievement was being nominated for best newcomer in 2010 for the Edinburgh festival. I was the only person in the history to be nominated off the free scene. Prior to that everyone thought the free scene was full of crap people. And subsequently from that lots of these people have been nominated. But for me, my biggest achievement is playing for the Comedy store. The reason I wanted to become a comedian, it was because of the Comedy Store TV show. Also, earning the right to play that club is my greatest achievement in comedy.”
