S7, Ep 4: Allan Mustafa, actor and comedian

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:07I'm Grace Dent and this is Comfort Eating from The Guardian a podcast where we pay homage to the lesser celebrated foods in life because even as a restaurant critic I believe the food that matters most is often that snack you cobble together when you're curled upon the sofa Each week, I ask my guest to lift the lid on what comfort foods have seen them through their lives. Because you can tell a lot about a person from what they eat behind closed doors.

0:44Hello there. Before we start, I wanted to let you know that this episode contains some swearing and themes that may not be appropriate for all listeners.

0:59oh you did your dinner off this hello friends you find me on my knees in rubber gloves preparing my home for a new comfort eating guest who is making his way here as we speak now he is an intriguing person and I've been trying to lure him onto the show for years. He was very keen at one point and then he went missing. To be honest, I've known a lot of men like that. But now he's back. I've basically had the celebrity podcast equivalent of a text at 2am that reads, you up. It's back on and I am very excited. Meanwhile, I have lately fallen down the rabbit hole of watching vids of homemade cleaning products.

1:51So in my spritzer here is one part bicarb and two parts vinegar and a few drops of essential oils. It's all very natural. Smells like Whitley Bay Chippy in here.

2:08There is something ironic in this AI high-tech world about how my TikTok algorithm is forcing me to live like a middle-aged Amish woman in 18th century Idaho. Anyway, guess who's here in a minute? Alan Mustafa. However, Alain rose to fame in People Just Do Nothing, his BAFTA award-winning semi-autobiographical mockumentary in which he played MC Grinder. This was inspired by his life growing up in southwest London with his mates doing a lot of, well, nothing. And it has garnered a huge cult following. The pirate radio station in the show Corrupt FM has mutated beyond the confines of fiction. they have played Glastonbury.

2:56They've had a greatest hits album featuring a bunch of grime and MC legends. They have taken over Radio 1 Extra alongside Stormzy and Craig David and pulled off a comedy sketch where they thought Ed Sheeran was the sound engineer. All made possible because Sheeran is a huge fan of the show. These days he's got a number of other TV projects and films under his belt, including the second season of his show Peacock, in which he stars as an aging personal trainer in a gym. It is out now on iPlayer and he has a foodie vlog, Taste Cadets, where him and two mates travel the world being funny and, well, eating loads.

3:38In short, this is a man who seems to be having an absolute ball and I cannot wait to find out what he's eating when his umbro shell suit has been hung up, his Burberry cap has been left on the kitchen table, and the 130 BPMs have come down to a more gentle 90. Hope you can't smell the vinegar.

4:07Alan, Mustafa, welcome to Comfort Eating. Yes. Long before you were a BAFTA winner, I hear you're a graffiti artist. Now, is any of it still there? If I was to go on the 4pm from Waterloo to Chessington North, would I spot any of your handiwork stroke wanton vandalism? I doubt it. All of that has been buffed, which means painted over in the graffiti world. Just saying that slang. but yeah it was it was like a big part of not just my life everyone i went to schools with like every single person had a tag uh it was just a thing one of my most unpopular opinions is about graffiti oh god are you one of those i don't mind the big colorful stuff but i don't even like that alan okay fine that's fine then no that's fine then because for me it's more like if you're not into you're not into it but don't pick and choose yeah right don't say Banksy's fine but then someone else gets nicked for it because R is in the eye of the beholder I love the fact that it now feels as if we're in a police interview yeah yeah yeah why would you say you got these paints from yeah I acquired the paints let's say we'd jump over onto the train tracks and we'd paint like the electric boxes that you can see from the train so they're called track sides so that's the most I would have gone to, we'd been painting tracksides and apart from that it's just having a pen on you all the time and just graffing up the bus I'm sorry for being mean about graffiti I feel like I might have hurt you we don't want people like you to like it

6:05it's snack time now I know that you are actually a real foodie So you've brought me your comfort food The food that you turn to again and again for cosy nourishment It is sitting in front of us under these suspiciously clean tea towels I don't know where we've got these from I don't know what it is So can you unveil your snack? Yes Okay So what it is, is like a seeded brown toast Yeah But like really dry and then dry bits of thick-cut mature cheddar cheese in the middle, so dry that you need a pint of water with it because you'll have tears streaming down your eyes. I feel like I've been... I can't wait for this.

6:48I honestly feel like a serial killer that's taken me away and kept me chained to a radiator. And this... He'd be so lucky. And then just thrown me this grotesque sandwich. Alan, why do you fear moisture? I feel like I'm in the Gobi Desert Hang on I love the way the water pairs with it because it really brings it out because it's just plain How many weeks does it take you to finish a sandwich like this? I'm nearly done I'm starving as well and this is great because I'm trying to be healthy and I'm not eating bread so this is like a double treat It's probably one of the least delicious snacks that anyone's ever brought in many seasons.

7:36Why no butter? Why would it be burned? Why would you burn the sandwich? Who hurt you? What happened? I like the way it sort of turns into like a bit of a sort of paste in the back of my throat. I love food. I know about food. I'm well-travelled. But this is 100 % my comfort food snack. And I'll tell you for why. Go on. Why? Why? Please. So my dad's from Kurdistan. Mum's from Czech Republic. Mum spent 15 years in Baghdad. She knows how to cook both sides of the coin. So growing up, I'd obviously be really good with food because they fed me different things and exotic things from an early age. But then you get to about six, seven, and you start being like, I don't like that.

8:18It's got green in it. Or I don't like that because you've heard someone else say that. That's when I got into this bag.

8:27And so I remember being like, she'd make me a sandwich. I don't want cucumber in it and stuff like that. And then it became a thing that was just my comfort food, right? Then I got into the years of like eating everything and smoking loads of weed. And I just would always love to batter these for some reason. It just stays with me. It's just comfort. And it reminds me of a time where I was safe. I mean, it's disgusting. It's like a lovely cheese sandwich with everything that makes it joyous taken out of it. It's like a sandwich made by somebody that hates you. My mum was growing up in communist Prague.

9:03I think this is like remnants of that.

9:12So in your days of graffiti, how did your mum feel? Did they support it? My mum, no, my mum was very strict in that sense. You know, she grew up in communist Prague. Lots of rules there. My sister grew up in Baghdad with them. I was very academic and I wasn't. I grew up here the things I was into people I was hanging around with was completely different to anything she ever knew so then so when I'm like I guess smoking weed doing graffiti which is illegal that was a big shock for her the first time I got arrested how old were you the first time uh like 15 I think and it was my mom's fault really my friend was um picking up some weed and my friend graffitied on a post box in the daytime while we were waiting for him while there's a woman posting a letter on the other side anyway we forgot about got in the dealer's car you know got our stuff and left whatever i get a call from my mate the next day at my favorite site the guy we got the weed off like they got his number plate from the camera and they're looking for the guy that did graffiti obviously they can't spin his house because he's he's got a lot more to lose than us so i've got to hand myself in it should i say it was you as well look and i was like definitely not obviously not yes yeah exactly and i'm like freaking out on the phone no of course i'm trying to whisper in that because i'm obviously still living at my mum's at 15 and then my mum's at the bottom of the stairs and then she was like alan what was that about and i was like huh my mate's um my mate's been in a car crash even though none of us drive we're 15 and she was like come here i heard everything and i'm marching you to the police station now you're handing yourself in because you need to face the responsibility of this and i was like i thought i was going this woman i was going jail like i didn't know all right freaking out we got there and then we're sitting in the interview room my mum's there the policeman's questioning me and my mum's burst out crying and i'm like you're the one that did and then he looks at me he's like look at what you're doing to your mother and i'm just like you bastard you know she she's voluntarily brought me here yeah you know this is all a lesson in it do you know i mean it's a lesson but then the reality of it actually made her break down crying you know when you say it was a lesson alan was it a lesson was that the was that the end of the road for you uh no no of course not you don't care what your mum thinks of that age it was all by the way It was all part of the daily culture of that scene.

11:47It's so funny. I've done podcasts about this sort of stuff. I never expected to be on your podcast. Are you literally trying to tell me that being arrested for graffiti was kind of cultural? And if anything, I should respect this great culture of graffiti. So, yeah, the other thing I'd heard was that if me and you went to Greg's together that you have a special technique of getting in and out maybe not paying for everything yeah that's funny again you know what's funny yeah is that like it was such a you know like you're on here saying it's my technique it was such a normal thing like you know i would have learned that with somebody else yeah so i guess yeah the part of like graph culture at the time and i guess just being a teenager is like you know you're skint you've got no money you just go out with no money and you still have the best day, you know.

12:41So you'll go Greg's potentially and you might, you know, be by a baguette and then it sort of goes up your sleeve by mistake. Yeah. And then you walk out and you're like, I wish I'd paid for it. And then, you know, you might pay for it next week. That is like the most embarrassing thing if you did get arrested for that. So imagine if that's the reason why you end up not being able to get into America for the next like six years. What's Greg's?

13:14I'm trying to think what I would steal if I was in there. I reckon I could get four of those sausage bean bakes in my bra if I did two each side. You can't though because you've got to ask for those. So that'd have to be a run out. That's what you call a run out. And that's, you know, that's just stepping up there. You ended up with quite the folder on you at the local police station. But I suppose what I want to know is, were you in a bad crowd or were you the bad crowd? No, I was in a bad crowd. Definitely. Yeah. I guess I wanted to be accepted and that came being part of my background and stuff.

13:52In my home, it was very multicultural. In the cultures I was raised with, we spoke a different language. We ate different food. I grew up in quite a sort of white working class area, I'd say. So I always wanted to fit in. And I was never good at sports and all those sort of things. So it was my first time to be creative. I was actually all right at Graff. It was one of my skills or whatever. It was that cultural capital at the time. Sometimes you might have a kid that gets away with not being able... He doesn't need to fight because he's good at football. Mine was music, emceeing and graffiti.

14:27And there was a romance to it. He's got a point. There was a romance to it. Yeah, there is a romance to it. You could smell fresh paint and be like, oh my god thingy was just here yeah do you know something sorry i'm gonna go back you so you speak languages english czech and kurdish do you ever kind of yeah actually in peacock the mother of the character that i play is kurdish it's more reflective of what it was like for me growing up say if a friend was round yeah they would speak maybe partly in a foreign language and you'd answer them in english or like answer them a little bit in kurdish so we've got little bits of that in the series just to pepper the sort of what it was like growing up as part of that.

15:03Teach me a really good insult in Kurdish, please. Goy. Goy. Hoshter. Hoshter. Goy hoshter. Goy hoshter. Which means camel shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you camel shit.

15:23It wasn't always like this. You weren't always so naughty. Take me back to the late 80s when you're a youngster growing up in New Maldon, south west London, there was your mum who's from Prague and your Kurdish dad and an older sister. What was home life like for the young Alan? Do you know what? Really good actually because at home was very, very Czech and Kurdish basically. You know, like it was just, I don't know. Which side won over? Probably Czech because my dad was back and forth a lot and I couldn't really relate to that side of things because I'd never been there. Yes. And I'd go to Czech Republic at least twice a year since I was a kid.

16:06So I'm way more fluent in that in the sense of I sound like I'm from there and I've got the slang and I've got the intonation. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. And Kurdish, I still have to think about it and I still have to try and remember. Did your mum cook a lot of Czech food or did you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lots of Czech food, lots of Kurdish food. as well. Certainly when my dad was back, it would always have to be the things that he wanted, you know, Kurdish food. But she would, my mum would cook like... What's Czech, yeah, what's Czech night, right? She comes in, you're getting Czech food.

16:32What's Czech night? Like it's Mexican night at the hotel. Czech night, yeah, blah, blah, yeah, yeah. No, it wouldn't even be that. She'd basically cook about four or five meals once or twice a week and they'd just be in the fridge and you help yourself to what you want. So she'd be like, right, there's goulash and knedlig, which is dumplings. Or you can have a lamb and okra stew, which is called barmio, which is a Kurdish, Iraqi Kurdish dish. And there's chicken soup as well. You know, and you pick what you want. Yeah, I know. Yeah, it's mad. It feels like that lady can cook. Yeah, 100%. Yeah.

17:03And she still to this day says she doesn't like cooking. And I'm like, you love, you're always, she doesn't even live with any of our family anymore and still cooks for my sister who lives near her. And my sister's like, she doesn't need to do that. But she just like wants. And I'm like, mum, you love cooking. And she's like, no, no, I don't love cooking. I just always had to so that you guys had food on the table. So you're not like these English people eating freezer food. Do you have anything in your fridge now that your mother has made for you? No, I don't know. Not in your freezer? No, I live too far from my...

17:36Yeah, I think I've got some dumplings in my... Some knedlick in my freezer. Dumplings which are like more of a carb used to soak up a sauce rather than like a stuffed thing sort of thing. The Kurdish... It'll be loads of things. Yeah, Kurdish night. So there'd be a lot of lamb stews always served with rice. Rice is a staple always in the fridge. Is it just white rice or does it have kind of barley and things like that? Proper Kurdish rice would be short of grain. And they've got these little yellow kind of split pea type of things sort of thing. Yeah, there's always a salad, always like whole spring onions that you'd crunch with it.

18:12Because when you go to a Kurdish meal, like out there as well, because everything grows, it's all green and that. then the whole table was covered with like green things on the side that you can just pick up. Yeah. Yeah. So that was their version of doing that at home is having like, you know, a spring onion. This must have been a really different background that you must have had from almost everyone that came back to your house. You know, your parents are cooking this amazing fusion of like Middle Eastern and Czech cuisine. Then your friends from school must come round. How do you feel when they come round?

18:47do you feel proud of it or no definitely not no i used to like i'd even be embarrassed that like my mom would make me like a check salami sound like no like salami but in pita bread so it's like both of my sides but yeah and once i started getting older and boys would come around and my mom would be like you know my mate would come around stoned out of his mind and and which i'm trying to sneak in just to my room like he's like you're all right so my mom and she's like bringing a platter of watermelon i'm like mom put that away he doesn't want it and they're usually you're like no I wouldn't mind the slice actually so it's that mixture though like there's the teenage embarrassment anyway I've just been so embarrassed of them you're like that anyway but then there's this extra layer that there is kind of genuinely amazingly freaky things happening your family yeah like they're not they're not like you know like just English no no exactly and it's not coming from nowhere because obviously school's tough anyway right everyone terrorizes each other for anything that's different right but also it was around the time of um you know the afghanistan stuff popping off like taliban you know so you know like i'm not even from afghanistan but it's like the type of things that were being said you know like i was getting in i was getting into it a lot you know

20:13when you're in your early 20s you meet people who go on to become friends who you write your BAFTA winning show with. Yeah. But I wanted to hear about your life before, just before this pivotal moment. So what were you doing for work? Call centres. What kind of call centre? So I sold a little bit of weed every now and then and I would do part-time jobs, right? Oh, so when you're saying call centres, it's like when Tony Soprano tries to tell me that he's in waste disposal. I would love this to be the cool picture painted on me, but it's not. It's way more pathetic. No, no, it was actually cool.

20:51So like my mum would always be on me. Make sure you get a job, blah, blah, blah. Make sure you do this. You know, I failed my GCSEs. I did them, but as in like I didn't get good grades. Went to college, did music tech there because I was massively into music. Before that was my pirate radio era. I did pirate radio for like three years. Then it was like raving, which is also part of the music scene, right? like sort of jungle raves, school parties, stuff like this. And then it gets to the point where my mum's like, right, what's going on with all this stuff? So at some point, your mother, I'm thinking, walks into your bedroom, opens the windows, right?

21:24And just like opens the curtains and goes, get out of bed, right? Yeah. It'll be 9am and she'd go, literally 9am, good afternoon. Fucking, it's 9am. It's not that bad. Because everything I'm saying to you isn't as bad as the bad version. because I still had a strict, you know what I mean, strict home. Yeah, okay, yeah. And also, she's not opening the curtains and windows. The windows are wide open, even in the window, because my room stinks of skunk. Yeah. So, like, I had to, like, and she'd be like, have you been cooking? Yeah, I'm sorry, I've been cooking with garlic. And it was just, like, this constant stress of balancing these two lives is just, you know, smoking weed's meant to be relaxing and, like, open-minded and hippies.

22:06It was the opposite of that. Were you any good? I was good because I'm good at, like, sort of, being charming with the managers, the people that work there and stuff, but then not actually do the work. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, kind of like, what do they call you? A personality hire? Yeah, personality hire. You bring a lot of joy. You're a high impact player, but when it comes to the end of the month, you've sold absolutely sweet F all. Hang on, there's one place though that I've not mentioned. I keep saying Chessington, Chessington, Chessington, Chessington, right? And the only thing I know about Chessington is, of course, the legendary world of adventure.

22:49Yeah. Yeah, I worked there for two seasons. First season, I was in the games. And then the year after that, I forgot to apply in time. And then you're left with like the last job, which is like the fish and chip shop. You'd basically be on the fryer and... Oh, no. And that's what made... I don't like mushy peas to this day as well. Opening the big tins of mushy peas. What is wrong with you? No, man. These big bulk mushy peas. As a northern person, this is quite upsetting culturally. You're like gravy. We do like a mushy pea, though. Yeah, but don't use that. Gravy is your thing. We do. I love gravy.

23:25Right, okay. Let's get that straight. Did they serve gravy? Of course not. We don't get that in chip shops down south. Did you once work in a carpet shop? Yes, I did. Oh, yeah. So my mum was sick of me not having work. Like, you know, she's like, you've literally got no money. Not knowing that I do have money, which means that you don't know. So then she was like, I've got your job at my friend's husband's carpet shop to be a cleaner. I was a 16-year-old, in my mind, root boy, hanging around with the boys, dressing in trackies, smoking weed. And now I've just got a job as a cleaner. Everything in my life that's cool is always degrading as well.

24:05Not a sexy thing. Nah. Oh, great. I've got to be a cleaner. All right, sweet. How can I fuck this up? Actually, do you know what? I'm not even that clever. I don't even do it intentionally. Sorry, I am that clever. I didn't used to be that clever. At the time, I was just so lazy. Like, if I could get paid for just relaxing, that would be my favourite job in the world at the time. My first reaction was, I love chilling. Wish I could puff bud for a living. That's how lazy I was. It's so bad. But just to put it into perspective, of my sort of vision on life. Our house was getting painted, the inside.

24:43So we invited our, like, Czech family over because some of them are painter decorators and that. So Uncle Peter came over and he never lets me live this down. I was sitting on my arse watching him paint in the bathroom. And he was like, what are you doing? Why are you not helping? And I was like, oh, my God, it's different for you. You like working. He's like, I don't like working, you dumb dumb little shit.

25:16you were part of the pirate radio scene it is a career plan i didn't think about my future like that you know like for some reason i thought especially at that time with the pirate radio it was like i was 17 you know and yeah i was 17 and it was just it's purely about like doing things that made you feel good at the time right or or would get you like uh i guess recognition amongst your peers or whatever so like i was good at emceeing this is the thing with you absolutely joking aside from the character in people just do nothing yeah all of that you can actually you can actually do it you can rap yeah like you can it's like yeah because for me music was a thing I could do.

26:01Yeah, music was a thing I could do. I'm at college. This is a time where it's changing, where, you know, I'm not feeling like I'm needing to do all these things to impress other people or whatever, you know, to fit in. And I'm kind of slowly meeting new people that are more into music and taking it seriously. And people from other cultures where it's actually cool for me to be Kurdish rather than, you know, in Czech rather than hiding that, you know what I mean? I honestly had no idea that you'd brought so much of that with you through your childhood about feeling like an outsider. And it clearly has cost you pay.

26:36Yeah, to this day, it's like, if I'm out and for a bit, if I feel like I'm not fit, I immediately feel the way. But I know why it is now. But you say when you get to college, this is almost like a turning point. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, so suddenly it's like, oh, this is sick. And this is kind of what I've always wanted as well. And even musically, these are the type of people that I wanted to make music with. of like the things that they're into, like hip hop and stuff. I always listen to that on my own, but no one else in my end was listening to that. Do you know what I mean? So you go in for the lectures or seminars or whatever they are, but is there a place that you all hung out?