Paul Chowdhry

Tajpal Singh Chowdhry was born on 21 August 1974 in Edgware, a suburban town in northwest London. He is of Indian Punjabi descent.^[5][6][3][7] His father had emigrated to Southampton in 1964 and worked as a bus conductor before buying a newsagent and sandwich shop.^[8] His mother passed away when he was five years old. ^[9]

As a child, he grew up watching a lot of stand up comedy including American and British acts such as The Morecambe & Wise Show, Benny Hill, and Bruce Forsythe^[10] His weekends were spent visiting a temple with his cousins and other relatives who enjoyed eating Indian food together.^[11] He attended The Harrodian School in Barnes.^[12]

Chowdhry has received numerous awards, including the Comedy award at the Eastern Eye Arts, Culture & Theatre Awards 2019, Comedian of the Year award at the Asian Voice Political & Public Life Awards 2019, and he was nominated for Entertainer of the Year by the British Asian Awards 2019. His show Live Innit? won Best Live Event 2018 at the ITV Asian Media Awards.^[13]

Chowdhry began his stand up career in 1998 performing in pubs and clubs around London, often risking racial attacks.^[14] He hosted the Channel 4 comedy series Stand Up for the Week as of the fifth series, having been a regular act for the third and fourth series. Chowdhry was the first British act to perform at the Caribbean Comedy Festival in Trinidad in 2003. He has been a guest panelist on 8 out of 10 Cats, Comedy World Cup, and Sorry, I Didn't Know. He has appeared on Live at the Apollo twice, in 2012 and 2015.

In 2016, he was one of the contestants on series three of the comedy show Taskmaster. In 2017, he was a guest stand-up performer in The Russell Howard Hour and also sold out the 10,000-seater Wembley Arena, becoming the first British Asian stand-up comic to do so.^[15]

In 2020, Chowdhry appeared in the television drama series Devils.

Since 2021, he has been hosting the podcast The Paul Chowdhry PudCast, in which he interviews comedians. He uses the signature phrase "what's happening white people?" at the start of his stand-up routines.

He performed Family-Friendly Comedian in Riyadh as part of the "Riyadh Laughs" comedy festival on 1 December 2023.^[16]

Chowdhry lists his influences as: "Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, George Carlin and Sam Kinison. Then Morecambe and Wise, Little and Large and Bruce Forsyth.^[17]

Chowdhry makes an effort to keep fit during touring, telling Coach Magazine: "I don't eat chapatis, even though I’m Indian" – and replacing them with higher-protein substitutes like bulgur wheat and quinoa. "If I only had ten minutes to work out, I’d do high-intensity abs training.”^[22] He has also spoken about his battles with mental health in the New Statesman: "Mental health problems aren’t really discussed in the Asian community."^[23]

Talking to the South China Morning Post, he said, "People see you as an Asian comedian, whereas the other two guys coming to Hong Kong (Sean Meo and Michael McIntyre) aren't Asian comedians – they're just British. But they're not referred to as 'English white comedians'. I'm British. I was born in England. The fact that I'm Asian has very little to do with my stand-up, although it would have an influence for an obvious reason because of the way I'm perceived by certain people. So I play on the stereotypes and try to change them."^[24]

• List of British Sikhs