Writer Kaamil Shah: "TV's missing a trick by not supporting Muslim creatives in the way we potentially should"

The series focused on Nik's Abdulla Khan, a British-Pakistani junior doctor who's bitten by a vampire with a thirst for halal blood. But it's after becoming a vampire that Abdulla starts to reckon with his own identity, straddling the worlds of his friends and colleagues around him, as well as his religious mother, who is hilariously played by Nina Wadia.

The idea for the comedy was born out of Shah "being stupid", he reveals, saying he sat on it for a decade. Shah first thought of it as a web series, writing the scripts and planning to get his friends together to shoot a YouTube pilot. But when the day came round, nobody turned up. Shah explains that he's glad in a way that the shoot fell through because it gave him the opportunity to write it as a half-hour comedy.

"It became the calling card for me in the industry. It got me my first agent, my current agent. It got me in with a company called Fudge Park. It's set up by the producers of The Inbetweeners so they're comedy legends. They pitched it to literally every single broadcaster that was doing comedy at the time, and everybody said no until we finally got to ITV.

"I never expected it to be on ITV, and we were really lucky that the commissioner there just loved the idea. Really got behind it, and then the show came out of that, probably about six years from the initial idea. So it was a really long process of getting from the idea to screen."

At the time, ITV was looking to launch ITVX and on the hunt for something "really fresh and different from what they'd done before" so it was the perfect window of opportunity for Count Abdulla to be brought to life.

Writing all six episodes as a debut writer was "one of the best years of my life", Shah says, with the central premise morphing into a story "that was more interesting about identity. What it's like being both a vampire and a Muslim and an outsider in both of those worlds. What it's like dealing with Islamophobia in wider society, but also having difficulties with your own community."

If you haven't watched the series, you may be surprised at how deftly it shines a light on what it means to be a young South Asian Muslim living in the UK. Not an easy feat for a show that's supposed to leave you giggling at every turn.

Unfortunately, the series wasn't renewed for a second season and it's a decision that was "heartbreaking", Shah says plainly. In terms of the reaction to the show once it debuted, Shah admits: "I'll be honest with you, I think we wanted a lot more. I think we felt that we'd made just the best show that we could have possibly made at the time.

"I felt like we put a lot of heart and soul into it, and we did something with Muslim characters and Asian characters that I don't think had ever really been done before, but I don't think it really got seen as that for whatever reason."

He continues: "I think it was just kind of boxed in as ‘quirky little comedy’, which it is, it's silly and fun. But it was a bit disheartening I think in the initial weeks after it came out, that it hadn't made the splash that necessarily we wanted it to."

The decision not to renew was a "long process", with Shah explaining "there was stuff to do with the strikes in the US and I think just the changing TV market".

"I think a lot of people at ITV were really behind the show and wanted to do it, but it was a really challenging time to recommission a show like that. And it did good numbers – I can't give you the exact figures but I think they were numbers that would work for many broadcasters. But ITV is a really competitive broadcaster. We accept that they were not in a position to go ahead with it but we had a lot more to say."

Now, Shah is working on the anticipated spin-off series to BBC's The Split, The Split Up. Announced back in 2024, the series is said to focus on "the high-stakes world of Manchester’s divorce law circuit, where one family of lawyers, the Kishans, reigns supreme," according to its official synopsis.

Representing the Indian and Pakistani diaspora is integral to Shah's work. Working on The Split Up as the only man in the room (alongside Sonali Bhattacharyya and Sumerah Srivastav) has given Shah the opportunity to be forthright about "standing up for the British Asian man. We can be hot too."

As an episodic writer, Shah says the experience has been fantastic. The Split Up is set to be "an excellent gift to the creative community of South Asians", especially based on how much of a huge hit The Split was.

Shah continues: "I think having that imprint on this show hopefully will bridge, potentially, an audience that [...] commissioners can sometimes think might hold off on watching a show with a primarily South Asian cast. So I think having The Split brand identity to it will give it a legitimacy in the eyes of that audience and then, hopefully, really spread out and reach a really wide pool of people."

Series creator Abi Morgan has been part of the process and is someone who Shah describes as "really generous" not just with her time, but also "to give this kind of space to British Asian creatives as well, to take her brilliant format and develop it."

While we'll all just have to bide our time to see what will go down in each episode of The Split Up, rest assured that it already sounds like the kind of drama we'll get swept up in in no time.

"It's with a new family of British Asian divorce lawyers in Manchester. It's doing something very different with British Asians on screen. I think it's really sexy," Shah says. "I'm really proud to be working on a show that's genuinely got heart-stopping moments of British Asians being messy, having relationship dramas, affairs and all of these fun things."

Working on The Split Up has been fun and exciting, but also an important opportunity to further the narrative of having multifaceted desirable characters from marginalised communities as well. It's something that has "always been important" to Shah, who underlines that it was key for Count Abdulla also.

"To make sure that we are saying that we as a community can be sexy, interesting and different in that way, as well as having these deep and complex internal lives, and talking about the issues as well," Shah says. "I think sometimes when you’re from a community that struggles to get representation, the immediate instinct can be to talk about problems like racism, honour killing or whatever rather than to just be joyful or yourselves, [or] talk about all aspects of your life on television.

"So that’s always been really important for me as a creative, to give South Asian characters the space to live life as I see it, which is not full of problems and it’s not full of difficulties. Conflict is still central to drama and I’m not going to be doing something that’s really sanitised and not talking about anything.

"But I’m also allowing my characters and the community at large to do things that we don’t always expect to see on TV."

At the time of speaking, it marks one year since the anti-immigration riots that took place across the UK in 2024. They were highlighted as an example of a rise in hate speech and far-right thinking, while recent news bulletins continue to report on protests outside hotels that house asylum seekers across the UK.

TV reflects the world we live in, but are executives reticent to making stories about Muslim characters centre-stage on TV?

"Potentially, I can't speak to the whole TV industry and I know there's many figures who are powerful and want to speak more about these things," Shah says.

"Look, I think if you've read Sayeeda Warsi’s book Muslims Don't Count, you'll see that Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism is not considered as important or a topic of worthy discussion, in spite of the fact that we literally had anti-Muslim race riots last year. We had similar anti-refugee violence, like a week ago. I think it's similar for many communities that are not being heard in the industry.

"Given the slowdown and the difficulties in the US currently, it's difficult for all marginalised communities. But I do think we are missing a trick by not supporting Muslim creatives in the way we potentially should."

He continues: "I remember feeling very powerless last year, because I really felt like a lot of what I was going to do for season 2 and 3 of Count Abdulla, in my plans, would really have addressed a lot of the stuff that was being said during that sort of summer race riots that we had. That is a disheartening feeling, because you want to feel powerful and you want to feel part of the conversation. You can only do that when you're being commissioned as a screenwriter.

"There's so many myths about the Muslim community and we’re really treated as a monolith as well. And I think it's really imperative for British media and particularly television, to start breaking down some of those narratives, start showing different stories.

"I think it's down to creatives like Nida Manzoor, Guz Khan, Adeel Akhtar, Riz Ahmed, to just name a few who have been doing amazing work to bring that down. But I think we need a lot more.

"You can just read any paper today and you can see that there is so much misinformation and mutual suspicion in communities. I think TV, media and representation is the key thing that brings people together."

Viewers have pointed to a wide chasm when it comes to Muslim representation on TV but since the riots last year, has there been a recognition of that and a shifting of the tide in any way?

“To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve seen it," Shah admits. "I’m not sure I’ve seen much of an outreach to find specifically diverse shows and I think we’re still finding the same barriers, the same kind of sense that really diverse and different shows about my community and other communities – I think they’re still finding it very difficult to penetrate that kind of concrete ceiling."

He continues: "I will say, the progress that has been made is largely on the back of just undeniable talent and certain creatives who have just pushed through and broken through. But is there enough being done in terms of the people in power to empower creatives from particularly the Muslim community? I would say there’s been a bit more of a firming up against those voices actually."

Shah speaks of the world of unscripted television. More recently, there's been the recent controversy surrounding the release of documentary, Gaza: Doctors Under Attack after the BBC said it would no longer air it due to the risk of creating “a perception of partiality”.

Channel 4 aired it instead but those conversations around Palestine show the "many difficulties being faced by those that want to cover that conflict and so many other conflicts that are very important to the Muslim community, in particular."

Shah continues: "We don’t know with drama, we can’t tell whether there have been shows that have been commissioned off of the back of the riots last year because drama takes a long time in the oven.

"In terms of what I’ve seen personally, yes I’m working and doing great stuff. I’m trying to reflect and tell stories that will break down a lot of these narratives in everything that I do but I’m still finding it extremely difficult to get stuff commissioned and to get stuff worked.

"I would hope that the urgency of what I am doing would be clearer to the industry but it’s always going to be competitive. It’s just something that I’ve come to accept I guess as a creative of colour and hopefully something that I can when I have more power.”

As Shah mentions, the world of drama is its own beast and the screenwriter describes himself as "a bit of a neophyte" in the genre.

Because of the sheer lack of representation, Shah highlights the pressure there can sometimes be to encapsulate everyone's experiences within the British Asian and Muslim community. Speaking of the conversations that arose after the release of We Are Lady Parts, Shah says many Muslim viewers asked whether the Nida Manzoor comedy made them feel completely seen.

"I think that speaks to the wider conversation, which is that: Why does one show need to speak for all Muslims?", Shah says.

"I felt that whilst writing Count Abdulla. I was really worried that this was going to be one of two or three shows that are about Muslims on TV. Am I representing the community right? And that becomes quite a prism.

"We've taken a huge stride with something like We Are Lady Parts, but I think the conversation that developed around it shows how much further we need to go in terms of commissioning stuff from different Muslim communities, not just Pakistani but like British African Muslims, even white converts.

"I want to be sat here in five years time, talking about my new show and it's not going to be ‘the Muslim show’, it's going to be: it's a show that's completely about this."

It's a challenging landscape to navigate as an underrepresented writer, with Shah describing some of the ludicrous feedback he received about Count Abdulla from a commissioner who thought the titular character wasn't, in their words, "Muslim enough". They even went so far as to question if Shah should put in an "extremism angle" into the comedy, which only feeds back into the damaging stereotypes Shah would prefer the South Asian and Muslim onscreen narratives moved away from.

"To be brutally honest, how many dramas have genuinely been commissioned from full stop British Asian writers? I think it’s like one in 10 years. That’s really disheartening," Shah says.

"It’s very challenging with drama. I think the commissioners and the people who control UK drama feel like there’s a lot more at stake, I guess, with drama. They feel potentially more conservative in terms of who they work with so we do see the same people getting the good jobs, over and over again. Look, they’re great writers and they’ve done a lot to bring up other people but it’s damaging that it’s been such a struggle for a British Asian showrunner to break through. It hasn’t really happened.

"There’s not a British Asian drama showrunner in this country. I would hope that it’s something that the commissioners are really thinking about and making active steps to find those people, hopefully I’m one of them. Having had a bit of experience under my belt. But yeah, it’s still really challenging. I wish I could come and say ‘I think we’ve finally cracked it’ but it’s just not there."

Looking to the future, Shah hopes to see a lot more being done in terms of representation and diversity on TV, beaming at the hope he has for "a period drama that has creatives of colour at its heart".

"How many Jane Austen adaptations are coming out this year alone? But I think that there's just so much of British history and relationships between the different racial groups in history that is just completely unexplored," he says.

Shah speaks of dreams of bringing the story of Sheikh Dean Mahomed to life for the screen, and of The Moonstone, which he did develop for TV. But industry feedback was simply "we just can't do period dramas".

As of now, Shah is working on "a really fun family drama with a very well-known actor, a British Asian actor, who I think has been a huge trailblazer for the community in the past 10 years."

While he can't reveal too many details just yet, he teased: "It's a really warm and loving family drama about mixed up families and what it means to be mixed-race and British Asian, which I think is something that hasn't really been spoken about at all in the conversation. Going way back to East is East, I think we've really not had much in that regard, for a long time."

Shah also hopes to incorporate his own Hindu background into his work, saying: "I've been working on something which is about reincarnation but also a romcom, and about taking the aspects of like past lives into your own life and into your relationships.

"I'm just really hoping we can find the right broadcaster and the right actors to really bring, I think, what could be just the warmest and most fun hug of a show that I want to give to the industry."

Count Abdulla is available to stream on ITVX.

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