NAMED one of the Top Ten People of the Decade, comedian Shazia Mirza found her portrait exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery alongside the likes of Nelson Mandela and David Beckham. Her inclusion in the company of such illustrious names was so laughable to the Birmingham-born stand-up, she decided to write a show about it, and next week A Portrait of Shazia Mirza arrives at the Millfield Arts Centre.

“I just tell jokes – how did I wangle myself a spot in the National Portrait Gallery next to Nelson Mandela?,” she says.

For all her modesty, Shazia is easily one of the most recognised faces on the UK comedy circuit. She has appeared on Have I Got News For You, was a semi-finalist on Last Comic Standing, is a regular performer at the Edinburgh Fringe and an award-winning columnist for the Guardian.

Perhaps what makes her even more recognisable is her rare comedy credentials as a second-generation British Pakistani Muslim girl. A position she played on to great effect following 9/11, performing her act in hijab dress and opening with the deadpan remark, “My name is Shazia Mirza. At least, that’s what it says on my pilot’s licence.”

No longer performing in the hijab, the affable comic insists she was “just developing a character that I don’t do anymore,” explaining she has now turned her comedy on herself.

“I’m not political, I don’t do any heavy stuff, all my material is about dating, relationships, going shopping at Primark, my life, and my family.”

Luckily for the comic, her parents don’t often come to watch her perform, “so they don’t know I am taking the mickey.” In fact, as she puts it: “They don’t care what I do on stage, as long as I get married soon.”

Like many comics before her such as French and Saunders and Hale and Pace, Shazia, a biochemistry graduate, came to comedy through teaching.

“I used to teach at a really rough school in east London. They didn’t want to be there, I didn’t want to be there, and the only way I could keep their attention was to make them laugh.”

After enrolling part-time in drama school some nine years ago, the 34-year-old began moonlighting as a stand-up comic. Shazia kept her comedy secret from her parents, until an appearance on Have I Got New For You threatened to expose her and she came clean.

Since that first TV appearance, Shazia’s reputation has taken her everywhere from a gig in a cave in Kosovo to Buckingham Palace, where she was recently invited to a reception celebrating British Asian talent. Speaking about meeting the Queen, she warmly remarks: “It was like chatting to an old lady at a bus stop.”

A Portrait of Shazia Mirza arrives at the Millfield Arts Centre on November 12, 8pm. Tickets: 020 8807 6680 or www.millfieldtheatre.co.uk (£14/12 concs).