Mona Yousefi
Mona got a foot in the door in a pretty unusual way. When still a teenager she created and filmed a taster tape her comedy show Mayhem Makers with no money, little equipment, some good mates and a load of imagination. With no contacts in the TV world, she then put a trailer of her show in a multi-coloured box tied together with a helium balloon and took it to Channel 4. She was politely asked to leave. Unperturbed, she then paid a bloke from the post-room ten pounds to put it on the comedy commissioner’s desk and it finally got seen by the right people and the rest is history….
Channel 4 liked it enough to commission her to create an episode of Mayhem Makers, which she wrote, directed and produced. It aired as part of the E4 Funny Cuts Strand in 2007 and successfully showcased Mona’s unwavering work ethic and creative talent to full effect. This led to Mona winning the BBC's Dragon's Den Comedy and Entertainment pitch at the Media Guardian Edinburgh International TV Festival, which then resulted in a development deal from MTV and Bebo.
Since then Mona has carefully crafted four characters which she plays herself – Tallah Khosravian a Middle-Eastern business woman, Wakana Fukui a Japanese Lolita girl, Natascha Leboushkin a Russian Relationship Deviser and Dr Geta Chopra a Doctor/Chef. Mona has together with Hat Trick productions, developed and recently finished filming a taster tape of her new show, ‘Go Native!’ featuring all four of these characters.
Since creating Tallah, she has performed this character in two pilots for the BBC. She has recently finished filming for Funny Plus One, a BBC 3 Saturday Night Live style sketch show pilot where she performed Tallah as stand-up in front of a live studio audience of 500. This was her first stand-up gig and because people laughed, this gave Mona the confidence to perform Tallah and bring her ‘Business Rules’ onto other stand-up stages. She hopes to perform Tallah at Edinburgh this year.
These idiosyncratic, multi layered characters are really close to Mona’s heart. Once she has on their hair and makeup, Mona immerses herself to truly become them. She performs these characters in the real world, from car boot fairs to business expos, getting true, hilarious reactions from the people she comes in to contact with. Mona is willing to go through anything – including suffering injury – to bring the best out of her characters.
Being able to speak three languages doesn’t hurt and Mona may use her fluent French, German and Farsi for some future characters.
TELEVISION
2012 - Go Native! (Tallah Khosravian, Wakana Fukui, Natascha Leboushkin, Dr Get Chopra - Writer/Performer) Hat Trick
2011 Funny + 1 Pilot (Tallah Khosravian/Writer/Performer) BBC In House BBC3
2011 Hat Stand (Tallah Khosravian) Hat Trick BBC1 Development
2011 Tech Show (Presenter) Marjan Television Networks for Manoto 1
2010 Bizness Breakers Pilot ( Tallah Khosravian/Writer)
2009 BBC Comedy Extra Online (Writer, Performer) New Comedy Unit BBC
2007 Mayhem Makers (Director, Producer, Writer, Creator) Boomerang TV for Channel 4.
