“Everyone will hate me!” Don’t be afraid of Nick Muhammad – fans of cheating celebrities will love his brilliant comedy | comedy

WWhen Nick Muhammad first toured his latest live show, Show Pony, this spring, he had already filmed The Celebrity Traitors. He pointed it out from the stage, with the kind of twinkle that made this audience think: “Oh, I bet he’s come so far!” This wouldn’t be surprising: besides being a comedian, Mohammed has been performing feats of magic, memory and mental acuity on stage for years. Sharp intelligence and a very humble demeanor: surely this is the type who thrives in the under-the-radar game of deception, revelation, revelation?

Who knew that Mohammed – far from winning the title – would enter the lore of traitors, in a finale for the ages, as the man who pulled it all off, snatching defeat from the jaws of his fellow bezzie-mate with fellow ‘Indian’, rugby player Joe Marler? Either way, Muhammad — an act I’ve referred to for years as “comedy’s best-kept secret” — gets his breakout moment, and he’s a wonderfully funny guy who became a household name in the least unlikely way. This is particularly pleasing to those who have followed his work since the early 2010s, when Mohammed appeared on the UK’s top comedy agency list – but he never really fit in there and, frankly, he rarely fit in anywhere else either.

That agency was Invisible Dot, the same stable that gave us Tim K. I specialized in presenting brilliant, offbeat comedy situations to the graduate group — “a kind of comedy that I don’t always find funny,” the somewhat non-university Mohammed told me in 2015. His sympathies were always more mainstream: he cited as his inspiration the Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em, French & Saunders, er, figure skaters Torvill & Dean. How does this guy (who just got a PhD in seismology, of all things) fit into modern comedy?

He has carved a niche with a series of performances in character more or less as his arrogant alter ego Mr. Swallow, a camp northern know-it-all now in the persona of Houdini, performing extraordinary feats of escape; and elsewhere (flanked by sidekicks David Elms and Kieran Hodgson) as the lead in a musical parody of Dracula. Alongside this are a series of simpler displays, combining PowerPoint presentations with charlatan and militaristic figures to a seductive but somewhat elusive effect. from He was Mr. Swallow? Muhammad never explained this. from He was Nick Muhammad? He almost never fully performs his role.

All the while, he’s become a familiar but reserved TV face — on shows like “Miranda” and “State Let’s Flats,” and on his own cybercrime sitcom “Intelligence,” co-starring David Schwimmer. Videos of his contributions to 8 out of 10 Cats have gone viral — like the clip in which he sets the words to the tune of the movie Jurassic Park. However, Muhammad’s profile skyrocketed with the success of the football comedy “Ted Lasso” in which he starred as the meek equipment man turned malicious rival manager “Nate.”

But until The Celebrity Traitors came along, the 45-year-old actor’s transition from sitcom success to national treasure had been a rocky one. Its appearance at the 2024 Bafta Awards was badly skewed (“Bafta viewers shudder, as Mr Swallow’s play leaves audience bewildered”), and the West End’s major spoof of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol went wrong on its disastrous opening night, breaking down in tears and embarrassment after repeated technical malfunctions.

How satisfying, then, that this most idiosyncratic artist (part Renaissance man, part mutant) has now carved out a special place for himself in the public’s affections—and by equally improbable means, which was the only way he was likely to do so. The surprising thing for comedy watchers is to see how much of an impact all of this has had on Muhammad’s live work. The Pony show, which is still touring, is an exciting experience, in part because for the first time in his career, the “real” Muhammad is in a very playful way peeking out from behind the Mr. Swallow mask — addressing (again, for the first time) his race, his background, and his career.

For a newbie, I can’t recommend this show highly enough. He may be worried, as Ed Gamble reported on Traitors Uncloaked, that “everyone is going to hate me” after betraying his friendship with Marler and ruining The Faithful’s chances on television on Thursday. But for fans who have followed his career, and who watched Show Pony, this couldn’t be further from the truth. We love Mohamed: he is an amazing artist, and his new fame is well deserved.