Ola Labib: ‘I want to be the person who bonds people through laughter’
The comedian on the inspiration behind her Channel 4 pilot The Pharmacy
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Looking back at her time working in a pharmacy, one summer in particular sticks out in Ola Labib’s mind. “Everyone was clearly on a rampage and we’d run out of morning-after pills,” she recalls.
The British Sudanese comedian, who back in 2022 was still performing late night standup after her day job as a pharmacist, remembers a woman in need of emergency contraception who asked, in all seriousness: “Why don’t you just make me one at the back?”
“I responded with, ‘Well, I don’t have a meth lab in the dispensary, I can’t just manufacture one’,” Labib laughs. “She then said: ‘If I’m pregnant and have a baby then it’s your fault.’ I was like: ‘I don’t know if you did GCSE biology sweetheart, but that would definitely be your fault, not mine.’”
It’s just one of the many ludicrous anecdotes Labib shares of her time working in pharmacies as we speak via video call ahead of her debut TV comedy pilot, The Pharmacy.
Her semi-autobiographal short for Channel 4’s Comedy Blaps strand — a springboard for shows such as Nida Manzoor’s We Are Lady Parts — is based on the weird, wonderful and sometimes challenging encounters in her more than 10 years working in a pharmacy in Portsmouth, her hometown on the south coast.
Labib originally wanted to be a doctor but failed to get into medical school. “I didn’t even know what a pharmacy was to be honest. One of my cousins who also wanted to do medicine didn’t get in and said pharmacy was pretty much the same, so I decided to study it not knowing what I was getting into,” she says.
In 2018, feeling burned out from her years of work in healthcare, she was encouraged to try standup by her siblings. “My brothers asked me what I really want from life and what brings me joy, I told them comedy and beauty. They said: ‘Try standup then, because you and beauty don’t go together’,” she laughs. Labib soon carved out a name for herself with her sharp wit and perspectives as one of the only Sudanese Muslim women on the British standup comedy scene.
By 2023 Labib found herself struggling to balance the demands of her day job and her blossoming on-stage career. She switched to working in pharmacies part-time — which she still does today — while using her medical background to inspire her comedy.
“I never used to talk about pharmacy in my gigs, but when I did, people found it really fascinating,” Labib says. “People started asking me to pitch stories to do with pharmacy and it was surprising the amount of people that had a big interest in it. Workplace sitcoms also do really well, The Office being a popular one, Phone Shop and IT Crowd.”
Labib’s career hasn’t always been filled with amusing encounters. In 2019 she worked in a hospital, which she describes as the “biggest piece of trashbag garbage” marred by racial discrimination and mistreatment.
“I told them I was getting married and one of the staff said to me: ‘It must be really nerve-racking meeting your husband for the first time.’ The department started talking about how apparently I was going to have an arranged marriage,” she says. “So I snitched and it resulted in them terminating my contract.”
Labib reflects on such experiences with stoicism, proud of how she has transformed something negative into a powerful piece of comedy. “People need to know what it’s like as women and people of colour working in the NHS,” she says. “I really want to be the person who bonds people through laughter. If a racist is watching The Pharmacy and is thinking, ‘Oh look at that effing whatever on our screens’ and one of the scenes makes him laugh, you can hate me but I made you laugh.”
At the heart of the pilot is Lola, a pharmacist played by Labib and based on her own journey. “I certainly feel the pressure in terms of trying to be the best I can to represent Islam positively,” she says. “I made sure there was no swearing, no evident sexual activity. I don’t enjoy watching those types of things anyway.”
Lola’s on-screen love interest is Idris, played by Labib’s real-life husband, Ramey Dawoud.
“Everyone loves to see a workplace sitcom with a bit of romance. It was important to include it in the halalest way possible,” she says. “There’s an intimate scene between Lola and Idris. As a practising Muslim, I would not feel comfortable doing a scene like that with anybody else, Islamically I wouldn’t do it. But alhamdulillah, it worked out, the producers liked him and they saw we had chemistry on set.
“It’s a way of showing that you could be Muslim and still have a career like this and hold on to your deen, values and still be entertaining.”
Labib acknowledges that balancing her style of comedy with the expectations of producers and commissioners has been a delicate dance.
“It’s not like standup, where you can say whatever you want and no one can stop you,” she says. “In TV, you have to push your ego aside and understand that these people know what will work. But as long as it doesn’t compromise my beliefs I’m on board. We don’t have to change ourselves to impress anyone. This is me, this is my story, my writing and my vision.”
Her commitment to authenticity is clear, and she hopes to be a trailblazer for future generations of comedians from marginalised groups. “It means a lot to represent the Sudanese community, especially with everything that’s going on in Sudan right now,” she says, acknowledging that she feels her show goes deeper than just representation.
“We’re really in need of something that you can watch as a family and with different age groups,” she says. “I’m not saying watching this is going to change people’s minds, but let’s be honest, at a time where Islamophobia is at the highest it’s ever been, they may watch it and think ‘actually she’s banter’.”
The Pharmacy will be available to stream on Channel4.com and the broadcaster’s YouTube channel from Monday 10 March.
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