We're no longer a joke

For years Asian comedians – and audiences – were a novelty on the circuit. Not any more, says comedian Yasmeen Khan

Asian women? Doing comedy? Don't be ridiculous, get back in the kitchen and make me some samosas." Comic Imran Yusuf is, of course, joking when I ask him what he thinks about the fact that I'm one half of Asian Provocateurs, a female British-Asian sketch duo.

Leading the pack of the crop of new British Asian comics, Yusuf (who was born in Kenya) was nominated for the Best Newcomer Award for his Edinburgh Fringe debut last year and has now had a pilot for his own show greenlit by BBC3. Paul Chowdhry recently concluded a nationwide tour by playing the O2 Indigo and also headlined on Channel 4's Stand up of the Week, while Paul Sinha's popularity on the circuit is matched by his regular appearances on Radio 4. Behind them are a handful of others with huge online followings and growing fanbases on the circuit.

When I first started seeing stand-up comedy, I would often be the only brown face in the audience. An Asian on stage was rarer than an unhacked phone, so when Asian comedy exploded into mainstream consciousness with Goodness Gracious Me, it seemed like something huge had been achieved. Its legacy was to inspire other Asians on to the circuit, although they were often viewed as a novelty act.

In 2008, while making a programme for Radio 4 about British Asian comics, I came across the stand-up Sajeela Kershi. Our mutual desire to write and perform sketches became apparent and Asian Provocateurs – the UK's only female Asian sketch duo – was born. We're about to hit Edinburgh with our debut show Asian Provocateurs Rule Britannia!, a satirical sketch show featuring television spoofs, original characters and cross-cultural comedy.

It's early days for Asian Provocateurs, but do recent successes mean that Asian comedy is finally coming into its own? For many acts the term itself poses a problem. "My issue is that I don't understand what 'Asian' means; the term is reductive. My 'Asian' experiences are very different from someone who is not Punjabi and Sikh. My cultural background is part of who I am, but it's not everything", says broadcaster Hardeep Singh Kohli, who returns to Edinburgh this year with his show Chat Masala.

Paul Sinha became a doctor (top of every Asian parent's career list) before turning his hand to stand-up. He is equally unsure about being defined by ethnicity. "It's not good enough for people to come and see a comic just because they are of the same background, though I do think that is diminishing. People are, and should be, more choosy."

An element of representing the community is inevitable – and not necessarily a bad thing. "Sometimes it feels like it's the first time some of the brown people in the audience have ever come into that space, whether it's a theatre or a comedy club, and that feels special", says Singh Kohli.

Asian punters tell me that they do enjoy seeing Asian comics; the desire to see yourself reflected, or to laugh at shared cultural experiences, hasn't gone away. Elements of our British Pakistani cultural background run through our sketches but the aim is to be inclusive; this is not an act geared to only one community. For a few misty-eyed men our name conjures up ideas of more exotic act. "Asian Provocateurs? Is it Asian burlesque? Do you perform in saris?" If it will get bums on seats in Edinburgh...

The starting point for all of our sketches is not culture, but simply what we find funny. We take our targets but place them in, say, a costume drama setting. As two Asian women, who also happen to be Muslim, the chance to ridicule extremism in a Taliban sketch that sees the audience willingly join in with jazz hands to sing 'jahadi-hadi', was too great an opportunity to miss.

Neither of us is the common media representation of an Asian woman – oppressed, suppressed and depressed. Preferably in a hijab. Someone described us as the Asian French and Saunders - far too early for that, but nice words all the same. Pleasingly, our audience so far seems to be very mixed, and perhaps the reaction in Edinburgh to two Asian women doing sketches about everything from extremism to the BNP won't and shouldn't be any different from the reaction to any other act. Like all comics, my primary aim is to entertain, but if along the way we challenge some of the preconceptions about Asian women, then I'll celebrate with a samosa – home-made of course.

Asian Provocateurs, Harlequin Theatre, Redhill (01737 276500) 29 July; Laughing Horse @ Espionage, Edinburgh (www.edfringe.com) 4 to 28 August