Ash Atalla was nicknamed “IRA” when his family moved to England from Northern Ireland.
Ash Atalla was nicknamed ‘IRA’ when his family moved to England from Northern Ireland
The Egyptian-born British TV producer, 51 – who uses a wheelchair after contracting polio as a child and has been behind hit shows including ‘The Office’, ‘The IT Crowd’, ‘Man Stroke Woman’ and ‘People Just Do Nothing’ –picked up a Northern Irish accent when he was moved to the province aged two due to his parents’ work as doctors.
He told The Observer: “I was born in Cairo and moved to Northern Ireland when I was two for my parents’ work – they’re both doctors.
“I’d open my mouth and this really manic Northern Irish accent would come out, which was even more incongruous for a little brown boy in a wheelchair.
“When my family moved to England, my nickname at school was ‘IRA’.”
Ash added about how his early career aspirations had nothing to do with television: “I was really interested in becoming a stockbroker. I’m a product of the ’80s, with the stock market booms and red striped shirts.
“I thought, ‘They’re just sitting down, shouting into a telephone. I could do that!’
“That’s what I trained to do, but when I got there, I wasn’t very good at it.
“I got fired or resigned – depending on who you ask.”
Ash went on about how he finally broke into making some of TV’s funniest shows after coming to hater his City job: “I can’t tell you that I grew up wanting to work in comedy. It’s something that occurred to me quite late.
“I got my midlife crisis out of the way when I was 23, a realisation that I was at the bottom of a ladder I didn’t want to climb.
“There’s something melancholy about trading in the City. As the new guy, I’d sit seven down from the man who’d been there 25 years.
“I thought, ‘I don’t want to be him.’”