Iranian comic Shapi Khorsandi knows all about difficult audiences. She fled to the UK with the rest of her family when her father, a famous political satirist, was threatened with death for criticising the Ayatollah. Having grown up living under the shadow of revelation, war, terror, fanatic Islamism, exile, prejudice and the rest, comedy seemed the perfect antidote.
Combining tales of her upbringing with some keen observational comedy on the British psyche, she is a breath of fresh righteous air in an at times self-centred world. And she uses her own experiences to question modern British attitudes to asylum seekers and refugees. As she says in her act, ''We didn't come here for the bloody weather.''
Perhaps again because of their experiences, the Khorsandi family likes to work together. As well as her solo stuff, she recently completed seven week sell-out tour of America with her brother in a show called How to be Iranian and a month-long tour supporting her father in his extremely popular stand-up show. While in Los Angeles she hosted a Jewish Single's Night and two barmitzvahs. Now, that's multi-culturalism.
