Funnyman Jeff Mirza is organising a Patel competition as part of his Bollywood Comedy Night 4, to try and bring in as many Patels under one roof.

Ask him why he's doing it and you get the flippant answer: "It's the way I Patel them."

There's no shortage of Patel jokes from Jim Patel who appears on Sitar Trek to Pateli-tubbies.

"Do you know they are trying to recruit more Asians into the police force?" he tells me. "If they do they will take over the cop shop, get a seven-year-old boy behind the counter and keep it open 24 hours a day."

His gags are in the Goodness Gracious Me mould. "Things that make me laugh I talk about them," he says nonchalently.

His material touches on Bollywood films, arranged marriages, curries and crazy Asian DJs. "It's a take off of life," adds the 32-year-old son of Pakistani parents.

His family and friends are so used to being his guinea pig audience that he admits that they start to run when they see him coming. "They're fed up to their back teeth and they ignore me," he says with a chuckle.

His first stint at comedy was when he told anecdotes about his summer holidays at the age of 14 for assembly at his local comprehensive in Ilford, East London.

He studied to become a structural engineer at the University of Westminster, but found his profession not to his liking. "I was so miserable," he says openly.

In 1993 he won the Hackney Empire East West Quest and in 1995 he was finalist in the BBC Open Mic Award for The Stand Up Show. It was this success that convinced him to give up his day job.

Since then he has played in all the major comedy clubs from Inverness to the South Coast, done regular slots for Radio 4 and BBC's 5 Live. The Guardian dubbed him "Europe's top Asian comedian".

Jeff's almost a regular at the Harrow Arts Centre. He's done three other Bollywoods in recent months at the Travellers Studio and they've all been sellouts.

The secret of his success is that the comedy speaks for itself. "I don't wear Spock ears, or a flash suit. I'm a funny happy-go-lucky person, who just enjoys what I am doing, living for the moment. "

The shows attract both Asian and white audiences though he's at pains to point out that it's the Asians that get more stick.

One of the comics appearing with him at Bollywood 4 is relative newcomer Raj Kukadia, a train driver from Yeading Avenue, Rayners Lane, who has worked with him in Croydon and a previous Bollywood.

Raj, 26, usually starts his act by telling people that he works for London Underground. "I'm the one that minds the gap," says the Jubilee driver in a straight voice. "Nobody at work knows I'm appearing," he says, they do now mate, I thought.

o  The Asian Comedy Shop presents Bollywood Comedy 4 on Sunday, 7.30pm, at the Travellers Studio, Harrow Arts Centre. Tickets are £7.50, £6.50. Box office 0181 428 0124.

Jeff Mirza will also be at the Travellers on Sunday, June 20, 7.30pm, with a crop of West End Comedy Club comics. Raj Kukadia minds the gap

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