Munya Chawawa: ‘Screw the BAFTA – I just want to be Dictionary.com’s word of the day’

Munya Chawawa doesn’t waste time waiting on London buses. Showing me his phone as proof, he has completed more than 1,100 Lime e-bike journeys, covering more than 3,500 kilometres. You could say he’s a mega-fan. ‘When I’m on a Lime bike, I feel like I’m in a Fast and Furious film,’ he says. ‘Not because I’m driving fast, but because I have a certain style of riding that just feels cool.’

Aside from being obviously funny and startlingly smart, Munya is, undoubtedly, a cool guy. The coolness is clear even before he dons a shiny pink shirt for his Time Out cover shoot, clambering on set, his signature eyebrows wiggling as he smoulders jokingly at the camera. But he’s not all about jokes: as well as sharing his signature reactive comedy sketches to his three million-plus followers (his most recent include satire on Elon Musk and a sketch about losing a 425-day-strong Duolingo streak), he has continued to branch out, and now his CV spans stand-up, TV, acting, documentaries and more.

So what could possibly be next? For him, the next chapter is about making something that will reach beyond the frantic whir of the algo – something that will stand the test of time and work its way into the everyday vernacular. 

Here, he speaks to Time Out about sticky toffee pudding, his sincere love for theatre and his upcoming Roundhouse Three Sixty mega show. 

You last did a Time Out interview in 2022, right? 

Yeah. I remember I was trying to start the year without having sugar, because I just go too crazy at Christmas. I’ve learned that I have a cake addiction: I have become the sticky toffee whisperer, which sounds like a horrible euphemism. There was a period of last year where I went around London, just reviewing sticky toffee puddings. 

And what took the top spot? 

At the moment, Hawksmoor, but that’s quite mainstream. I need to find an independent king. The hunt will resume in the second half of the year, after the summer. 

In that interview, you talked about being in Stormzy’s armpit at Thorpe Park. Have you been in any other famous armpits recently? 

I had a junket with Jamie Foxx recently and we had a hug – I didn’t get the full armpit, but from what I experienced, close enough, it was an A-list armpit. But I don’t want to become the armpit guy. Reviewing sticky toffee is something I can get on board with; I’m not gonna start reviewing celebrity armpits.

Since 2022, you’ve done a bit more stand-up and TV, branched out from the internet stuff. What would you say are the main things you've learned?

Well, the internet has changed a lot. Video content is so prolific now, it’s ubiquitous. Now you open Instagram and your nan’s done a ‘get ready with me’. Your uncle’s doing a ‘day-in-the-life’. It’s just everywhere. Now, you could go viral without necessarily having the quality behind it. I’ve definitely been tempted by that – maybe I should just scale back production, maybe I don't need to stay up until the late hours of the morning scripting – but I decided pretty quickly, even though you can become really famous from doing really little, I care too much about my satire to go down that route. So I’ve doubled down.

Your skits are quite high production now.

I’ve increased the length of my videos, I’ve made my scripts longer and I still invest in my 3D animations. I decided that I would prefer legacy over having the most followers. I think more than ever, I want to leave a permanent mark. 

You’re across so many different platforms now. What does an average week look like for you? 

To be honest, now, sketches are something I have to squeeze in. Which is an incredible place to be at. This week, all day, I have my Time Out shoot. Then tomorrow, I’m presenting in the O2 arena alongside Jack Whitehall for a Formula One event. Wednesday, I’m interviewing Danny Dyer. Thursday, I am taking the day off to take my mom to see Craig David. Got to stay grounded. Then on Friday, I’ve got some auditions. So I don’t know where I’ll find time to make a sketch, but if you’re a creative person, you can feel steam building up in your creative kettle. I’ll work later or wake up earlier to get stuff done, just so I can express something. That’s sort of why I’ve started doing 5am starts.

If you’re a creative person, you can feel steam building up in your creative kettle

5am club?! 

Mmmhmm. I started it because I needed to tire myself out – when I would go to sleep, I felt like I’d shut down all the tabs in my brain, but then they would just come to life tenfold. But also, waking up at five, it feels like being in The Last of Us, like being awake in this different realm where no one else exists. So it gives me a bit more time to think. 

And what about the transition from short-form to TV?

I’m always pitching show ideas. My first doc ever made was BAFTA-nominated against David Attenborough, so I didn’t want to win that, it would have been some sort of treason. And then, I did another one, which was the first YouTube show to be BAFTA-nominated. I know I have it in me to make good TV. I started off as a TV producer, and now I’m just sort of waiting for the industry to open up a bit more. I’ve got some insane ideas which, if they were made, I think would change the landscape of UK TV. One of them involves a very embarrassing experience I had in a room with Zac Efron and Zendaya, which I need closure from. 

Well, I hope you get that closure. 

Me too. It was intense.

So much of your reactive sketch content is grounded in social commentary. When you’re crafting your scripts, how do you get the balance between being light hearted and true to your personal brand, and actually getting a message across? 

If something goes out now, which does divide people, I just have to embrace it: that’s satire. If it hasn’t made you laugh, hopefully it’s made you smile, and if it hasn’t made you smile, at the very least, I hope it’s made you think. In having to think why you disagree with someone, you’re really having to interrogate your own beliefs and sort of ascertain what your values are. And I think that’s good for people to do. 

Do you spend a lot of time on the comments or is it something you avoid?

I look at the comment section of news stories, because that tells me the most about how people are actually feeling. That’s probably where most of my research comes. 

Would you say you have a favorite social media platform?

I like Instagram. It’s very nostalgic for me. I like the laser focus connection between me and my audience. TikTok is amazing because you can be seen all around the world, but it might just be a brief stop on their roller coaster around the app. If you ask me what my favourite app is, I’d probably say Dictionary.com. Because then you just drop a quick, cheeky word, and people are like, ‘yo, where did you learn that?’ I try to learn a word a day. My word at the moment is ‘boondoggle’.

I’m thinking less about my next million followers, more about what I can do that’s going to stand the test of time

What is ‘boondoggle’? 

If a politician went, ‘I'm standing next to the wind turbine because I really care about the environment,’ and then they never bring any environmental policies in – that’s a whole lot of boondoggle. A whole lot of nothing. It sounds like Dumbledore’s cousin or something. If you just slip it into a sentence, most times, people won’t acknowledge it, but then they go away thinking, ‘my guy knew the word boondoggle. Must be some literary genius.’ 

Maybe I’ll get on that. 

Get on Dictionary.com. There’s some really good words, like the word ‘Sardanapalian’. It means excessive parties and stuff. Back in the day, there was like a king called Sardanapalus and he had these wild parties. The J20 was flowing. 

What a way to be remembered. 

Now he’s the Dictionary.com word of the day. That’s what I want. Screw the BAFTA – I just want to be Dictionary.com’s word of the day. Munya-isms. 

Would you say it is easier to break into comedy, now that the internet is more saturated with people doing sketches?

What I love about social media now is that it’s harder for people’s dreams to be crushed. Because back in the day, if I wanted to be a presenter, there was one person at one channel who could say yes or no to me. What I would encourage any young person is to resist the allure of becoming famous overnight. You’ve got to take the time to learn your craft, learn to edit, learn to script, make your mistakes. Also, I should probably also say that the Nando’s and Time Out Extra Hot Comedy Club is gonna be cool. It’s testament to the fact that you can literally pick up your phone and become anything you want to be if you put an effort in.

Speaking of, are there any comics that have caught your eye recently? 

I really like a guy called Al Nash. His stuff is really great. It's very funny, very left field. I like a kid called Papz, who does a lot of mockumentary, Vice style documentaries, but about things within the ends. But, I have spent less time on social media recently, I’m in my theater bag. I’m watching a lot of plays.

What have you seen recently?

I saw a play called The Gift, which was at Park Theater, in Finsbury Park, and it was by a guy who gets a shit in the post and it triggers him to think about all of his previous transgressions against people in his life, and whether he was a good man. Nowadays, when we are making art, we always think, what’s the most crazy, zaniest thing we could do – when actually you could just take a dump in a box.

I wish I could scream it from the top of the Gherkin: we got to be more friendly to each other

Would you ever want to dip your toe into theatre? 

Million percent. I want to get to the end of my career and just be like: I did it all, I really stretched the definition of an entertainer. Theater, scripts, movies... 

A lot of your sketches are based on the bad guys and the world is pretty gloomy right now. If things got suddenly better overnight, do you think you’d run out of stuff to make?

If the world becomes better, 100 percent I will turn my attention towards the fun side of life. I did the Duolingo sketch which was a really silly one with no deep political meaning. I would love the world to get better. One thing I always want to tell Londoners – I want to tell them with a giant megaphone, screaming from the top of the Gherkin – is that we just got to be more friendly to each other. It’s a self perpetuating cycle, isn’t it? 

You’ve lived in London for eight years now. Is there any part of the city where you feel a tangible community spirit? 

When you go through Brixton. You will see some mad things, but I like it. You see the old school yard men on the curb, they got their magnums, they’re blasting out music when they shouldn’t be. Love that. You walk through the village, there’s a little samba salsa party happening outside a Colombian restaurant. I love all of that. There’s like an emporium of culture through every door.

 

So wholesome. Love that. You’ve got Roundhouse Three Sixty coming up – your show ‘Munya Chawawa and Friends’? What actually is it?

I would say it’s comedic and musical comfort from the chaos of outside. Come in here, catch a vibe, a laugh, hear some music, and just forget it all exists, okay, for the duration of the show, and then you go away with a little warm glow. 

Such a gorgeous venue as well. 

It’s mad to think, like, Charlie Chaplin performed there, and when he did, it was like war time. There was mass poverty, politicians were super crooked. Now, in 2025, you think: wow. Look how far we’ve come.

If we look beyond 2025, what are your future plans?

I want to really double down on the quality of the sketches I do put out at important moments. Now, the focus for me is just curating what Munya the man is. Acting. Having these legacy projects, the same as Michaela Coel had with I May Destroy You, working on my equivalent of that. You collect your clout and your followers and whatever, and that’s like collecting a big lump of marble. You could spend a lifetime just getting the biggest mound of marble. But right now, I want to get my hammer and chisel out and start to build it into something really impressive. 

Munya Chawawa & Friends at Roundhouse Three Sixty is on Friday, April 18. Find out more here. 

Photographer: Jess Hand @jesshandphotography
Photographers Assistant: Isabelle Rutland
Design Director: Bryan Mayes @bryanmayesdotcom
Photo Editor: Laura Gallant @lauramgallant
Stylist: Lewis Munro @lewismunro_
Grooming: Lucy Thomas @lucythomasmuaIn look one Munya wears Jumper by @qasimi_official, trousers by @solidhomme, jewellery by @bleueburnham. In look two he wears @qasimi_official shirt, jacket by @edward.cuming, jewellery by @bleueburnham. In look three he wears a jacket and tank top by @hermes and jewellery by @bleueburnham.