In How Not To Lead A Double Life, Ola Labib tells the funny, painful story of becoming herself

Growing up as the daughter of global majority immigrants in the UK, especially in a largely White area like Portsmouth, it is not uncommon to feel like you are living the most unfair life in the world: overprotective parents, a different set of rules for you and your brothers, unpaid domestic labour and parental pressure to score straight A's at school.

To top it off, you feel like you are trying but failing to keep up with your female counterparts at school in terms of fashion, music, and having a social life.  

It is only as adults that we come to realise that as global majority girls, we pretty much all lived the same life, and Sudanese British stand-up comedian Ola Labib's new book, How Not To Lead A Double Life: Confessions of an Unapologetic Outcast (Robinson, July 2026), just further confirms this. 

Ola, from the port city of Portsmouth in South England, has spent a long time working on what she describes as a semi-autobiography — over four and a half years, in fact.

How Not To Lead A Double Life was initially a screenplay, but after a TV channel said that there was already a Muslim-led show airing and they couldn't have two at the same time, Ola decided to turn the script into a manuscript. And I am glad she did. 

Parental pressure and finding comedy

Last year, I attended one of Ola Labib's live shows as part of her 2025 UK tour, Dispersible, and I noticed that a few of the jokes have made their way into her new book.

Reading it felt like experiencing an extended stand-up comedy show with the book's innumerable laugh-out-loud moments and Ola's iconic mix of angst and comedy. The book's overly imaginative prose makes you privy to the inner workings of teenage Ola's mind.   

"A lot of the book is quite traumatic, so  you have to add humour in order to make it a good read," Ola tells The New Arab.

"I want you to laugh and enjoy it. So, that's why I made it a semi-autobiography. A large part of the book is storytelling and how I would have envisioned things in my head," she continues.

"So, for example, when my mum is saying, 'Well, why aren't you marrying this person? He's a good person. Look at Samia; she hasn't married, and look at her. This is what you want to end up like.' I recreated how I saw it in my head, how ridiculous that conversation was, through comedy. You have to engage readers , and I engage them through humour and storytelling." 

How Not To Lead A Double Life is the tale of Ola's girlhood and early womanhood, navigating her Sudanese parents' rules and expectations while trying to find friendship in a White-dominated high school, then at university, her career as a pharmacist, and how she broke into the world of comedy.

The latter is something she had to hide from her parents for fear of disappointing them: that's the double-life element of the story.

Many of us know her parents' line of reasoning, that they did not leave their countries and move to the UK to have us perform comedy in pubs. 

What Ola makes clear, though, amongst the bemoanings of her teenage and young woman self, is an understanding of why her parents were so overprotective, and she holds space for them as humans.

At no point is there any link between the idea of an overly protective and strict upbringing and the fact that Ola is Muslim.

She provides context behind the authoritarian parenting style of our immigrant parents: an unfamiliar and sometimes scary new society in which our parents are under pressure to be successful, while ensuring that we, their children, receive a good education and are kept safe. 

"It was really important to me to provide that nuance," Ola shares.

"Our parents came here watching stuff [on the news], saying things like white people don't like us, so they had a misconception that they were protecting us. In the book, I talk about how the things parents are overprotective about that you think are oppressive are actually meant to protect you. Unfortunately, sometimes, people learn the hard way."

Toxic work environment 

Among the laughs are some pretty serious topics in the book, including a detailed account of Ola's life while training to be an NHS pharmacist.

As well as being overworked, Ola says she experienced a racist and toxic workplace while doing a placement in a community pharmacy, before facing sexual harassment from a male doctor she reported to in a hospital and more racism from patients.

It took a toll on her mental health.  

"It's really important that people know how the NHS functions and what NHS workers have to take home with them," she says. 

"So, you making their life miserable, you're making it more difficult for them when already the system is against them. They go home and take this stuff with them, and that's why mental health issues for NHS workers are on the rise. I included this in the book so people can get  insight into what it is really like. There are stresses from all angles, and I think people need to see that." 

Halal dating

Finding love the halal way is another central theme, and one I found myself furiously nodding along to.

We've all been there with the halal dating apps, which Ola reminds us can sometimes be "a catalogue of bottom-of-the-barrel men," and that one experience with a man from our own ethnic community who we thought we would marry but then spectacularly chickens out and lets us down.

In Ola's book, it is a chap called Tariq, a character who is a combination of all the disastrous men she’s dated with a tragic finale.

But, in a love-triumphs-all story that could be a rom-com movie of its own, is Ola's journey to meeting The One, a Sudanese-American rapper she calls Kashta, who she quite literally travels to Sudan for.

For the latter half of the book, it is a will-they-won't-they story until the very end. 

"Back in the day, if you were, say, back in Egypt or Sudan, you would have an auntie at a party who has a grandson, will meet a couple of girls, see one of them is really nice and say, 'Oh, you know what, I have a son and I think you two would make a match,'" she says.

"That doesn't exist here. No one is going to help you. You're pretty much on your own. It's really hard."

Breaking out and finding her voice

Among the belly laughs and the tears is what Ola describes in her book as a broken path to happiness.

How Not To Lead A Double Life is a reminder of what it is like being a woman of colour who has just as much talent as everyone else but has to work twice as hard due to racism in all industries, whether it be healthcare or the comedy circuit.

But ultimately, Ola Labib's perseverance in all areas of her life – career, family and love life – pays off.

She is currently persevering with the script for the pilot of The Pharmacy, which initially aired as a Channel 4 comedy short in 2025 to great acclaim, as well as a sitcom for the BBC, details of which are yet to be announced. 

"I know it sounds cliché, but anything is possible," Ola tells The New Arab. 

"I was doing open mics in grubby, unpaid venues for three and a half years, which in the grand scheme of things isn't that long. But if you're really determined and passionate, and you really believe in yourself and get honest opinions from people, anything is possible.

"There are courses and workshops out there, and that’s something I'm going to be doing: I'm going to be running comedy writing workshops to bring in more people from our communities."

Yousra Samir Imran is a British Egyptian writer and author based in Yorkshire. She is the author of Hijab and Red Lipstick, published by Hashtag Press

Follow her on X: @UNDERYOURABAYA