Sami Shah

Sami Shah is a Pakistani-Australian stand-up comedian, writer, improvisational actor, and radio presenter. Shah was a member of the improvisational comedy group "BlackFish" created by Saad Haroon in 2002, and later performed the first solo English-language comedy show in Pakistan. He had several tours across Pakistan. He moved to Australia in 2012, and has since hosted several podcasts and shows on ABC radio as well as written several books, performed in comedy festivals and created podcasts. He was born in Pakistan to a moderate Shia family and studied English at the University of Virginia in the United States.

Shah joined BlackFish in 2003 and performed his first solo show in Karachi on 13 November 2005, entitled "Nobody Moves, Nobody Gets Hurt," which raised funds for victims of the 2005 earthquake. In 2008, he hosted, wrote, produced and directed a news satire television show, News Weakly, which ran for two seasons on the 24-hour news channel Dawn News. After moving to Australia, he won Best Local Act at the Perth International Comedy Festival in 2013 and won Best Comedy WA 2016 Fringe World, and he appeared at the 2019 Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

In July 2014, Shah published an autobiography entitled I, Migrant: A Comedian's Journey from Karachi to the Outback, which was shortlisted for the 2015 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards NSW Multicultural Award. In 2016 he published his first young adult fiction, Fire Boy, with its sequel Earth Boy in 2017, and in July 2017 The Islamic Republic of Australia was published. He has hosted several radio programmes and podcasts, including the ABC comedy podcast Laughing Dead from 5 October 2016, and in December 2017 became a co-host of Breakfast with Jacinta Parsons on ABC Radio Melbourne, replacing Red Symons.