CLOWN PRINCE

BEFORE YOU CAN understand Nazeem Hussain, you must first appreciate the force of nature that is his mother. A single mum who brought up three kids at a time when divorce was frowned upon in Melbourne’s Sri Lankan community, Mumtaz Hamid worked around the clock as a bookkeeper, a kitchen hand and a leaflet deliverer, among other things, to make sure her kids grew up with opportunities to do whatever they wanted, even if that included walking away from a secure career in tax law to become a stand-up comedian. Something she never did, though? Back down from a fight.

“My mum, if you try to put her in her place, she’ll put you in your place,” says Hussain, who’s talking to me from the kitchen of his home in St Kilda East, as he finishes a bowl of yoghurt, banana, Weetbix and protein powder. “She’s a very strong woman.”

Whose mum isn’t you might ask? Well, not every mother, upon being brushed off by the school principal after complaining about the racist bullying of her eldest daughter, marches into the local MP’s office to escalate things. The local MP? That would be Jeff Kennett, Premier of Victoria. “She walked in and the receptionist was like, ‘Can I help you?’” Hussain recalls. “My mum said, ‘I want to speak to Jeff’. The receptionist was like, ‘Who are you?’ So, my mum walked straight past the receptionist into Jeff Kennett’s office. I don’t know what she said but 45 Jeff Kennett. Jeff Kennett looked at the principal and said, ‘Just please do whatever this woman wants you to do’. And from that moment on the bullying stopped. She has that take-no-bullshit attitude.”