Omid Djalili Gets His Own BBC Show

It’s great to see that Omid Djalili has eventually been given his own TV show at prime time on BBC 1. What is even better is that the producers of The X Factor have moved the time of their results show so that I can watch both on Saturday night without missing any part of either show.

I’m particularly pleased to see Omid do so well because, like me, he is a Bahá’í and was born and brought up in Britain. Of course, Omid has been plying his trade as an actor and comedian ever since he graduated from the University of Ulster in 1988 – he was rejected by 16 different drama schools – when he began to win parts in London’s “fringe” theatre circuit because of his ability to portray a wide range of ethnic characters.

I first saw him perform his one-man shows The Short, Fat Kebab Shop Owner’s Son and A Strange Bit of History at the Riverside Studios in West London during the mid-1990s and I thought he was hilarious. In 2001, I finally got to meet and talk to him in person at the Bahá’í Academy for the Arts, where I was taking a graphic design course and he was performing for us, free of charge, several times during the programme. And I must say, he really is a nice person to get to know.

I had already met his wife, Annabel Knight, who writes a lot of his material, at the Bahá’í Summer School held at Ackworth in 1991, when she was living in Gillingham and I was living just up the road (and railway line) in Bexley. I remember inviting her to the Bexley community’s Nineteen Day Feast, but I think she had other plans in mind.

Annabel and Omid got married in 1992 and moved to the Czech Republic where they started working together in a number of experimental productions; became involved with the Brno-based Centre for Experimental Theatre, where some of Vaclac Havel’s first plays were produced; and toured the country, giving performances and holding drama workshops.

The next time I saw Annabel was in 1996 when she introduced Omid to British television viewers on ITV’s The Big, Big Talent Show, hosted by Jonathan Ross. Omid reached the final of this TV show and won its “Best Comic” award.

Of course, since then, Omid has been seen numerous times on television in Britain and the United States, and in several Hollywood movies – and not just in comedy roles! What I find amazing is that it is now more than ten years since he first appeared on our TV screens, but I am so glad that he has finally reached the top of his profession – after all, the BBC doesn’t invite just anybody to host Have I Got News For You! I understand from Omid’s website that he has even been invited to take part in Celebrity Big Brother in 2008 and, you never know, he might even perform at the Comedy Hall here in Tiverton!

For further information about Omid Djalili, visit his entry on Wikipedia or read the article about him and his wife on the Bahá’í World web site.