Seapa and Hugo sit down with us over Greek sharing plates to discuss friendship, fame, Kurupt FM’s new chapter and their brilliantly slow beginnings
Allan ‘Seapa’ Mustafa and Hugo Chegwin have spent nearly 20 years making each other laugh, winding each other up and turning a handful of rough webisodes about a Brentford pirate radio station into one of British comedy’s great recent successes.
With Seapa’s quarter Greek-Cypriot heritage giving us the excuse, we took the pair to Kallos in Salford’s Colliers Yard. The modern Greek café and wine bar serves unfussy sharing plates alongside a smart list of Greek wines, and it turned out Seapa already had it on his list of places to try.
He arrived to a chilled bottle of red, an order apparently so good it earned applause from the staff, while Hugo was handed a beer and settled into what looked suspiciously like the real-life version of DJ Beats’ supportive second-in-command role.
The pair first met around 2006 or 2007, meaning they have known each other for close to two decades. Despite the on-screen dynamic between MC Grindah and Beats, they insist the difference between their characters and real personalities is significant. Seapa might share a similar voice with Grindah, but the delusion, bullying and relentless self-belief are, he assures us, mostly fictional.
Their friendship became the foundation of People Just Do Nothing, which began with five webisodes made across roughly two years at what they admit was not exactly an overwhelming work rate. Friends were cast because they had cars, came round to smoke or happened to be available, and the whole thing developed slowly and organically before becoming a BBC series, a film and a BAFTA-winning phenomenon.
Winning that BAFTA – beating none other than Fleabag in the process – remains surreal, although both talk just as fondly about being accepted by the garage scene they grew up admiring. For Seapa, performing alongside names like Heartless Crew or Craig David felt every bit as significant as recognition from the television institution. Looking back, though, they acknowledge that getting paid to mess around with their closest mates was probably the real prize.
Kurupt FM is now returning with new music after a break of around three or four years. Rather than forcing it, the group found themselves enjoying being back in the studio, working with producers including Young Franco and PJ Bridger, and creating tracks designed for clubs and at festivals. The new material is more dance-focused, partly because they are thinking about how it will feel to perform rather than simply how it sounds on record.
Hugo, an accomplished producer and songwriter long before the comedy took off, has also returned to making music under his own name. He describes that project as something he does without expectations, purely because he loves it, while Kurupt FM comes with a wider audience and a strange momentum of its own. Even when the group steps away, clips keep circulating online and a new generation discovers the show.
Between discussions of pirate radio, garage music and career-defining awards, Kallos kept the table full with Greek pastries, lamb shoulder flatbreads and overnight beef cheek stifado. There was also time for Keith Chegwin’s famous naked jungle moment, Seapa’s fascination with blood tests, and a lengthy geographical theory involving Norfolk and ‘South folk’.
Watch the full episode to see two old friends resume high-level waffle that somehow launched an entire comedy universe – and to discover why calling Seapa a prick remains Hugo’s exclusive privilege.
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