Ralph Jones

‘Londoners have a great sense of humour,’ says Munya Chawawa, over an orange juice in a West Hampstead bar. ‘It’s a coping mechanism, even if we don’t readily admit to it being one.’ He knows there are lots of things in this city that could be ‘really quite depressing’ if you think about them for too long: ‘Oppressively high rent, long, rattling tube journeys every morning, saying to friends, “Yeah, we’ll catch up”, knowing that’s basically a ten-year promise.’ So these things have to become jokes. This is the Chawawa ethos: when the reality is properly grim, why not cheer people up? With a small country’s worth of people on social media now hanging on his every word (Chawawa has 1.1million followers on TikTok and 965,000 on Instagram), the comedian has the ability to cheer up a lot of people. But he wasn’t always so social-media savvy. When he was 17 years old, his younger sister begged him to let her create a Facebook account for him. The reluctant teenager was ‘petrified’ of social media, he says, and only agreed if he could hide behind a pseudonym. The name he chose? ‘Arnold Milky’. Chawawa has come a long way since then. But in a way, he’s still Arnold Milky. Photograph: Jess Hand The world at his feet Over the last two years, Chawawa and his character comedy have lifted our mood. His ability to create a topical video in the time it takes to refresh your Instagram feed is seriously impressive, and this year looks like a good one to be in his shoes.  For someone whose f