SHAPPI KHORSANDI
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SHAPPI KHORSANDI

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But this year, in her self-titled show, she’s talking about her present day situation. “My shows aren’t very thematic,” she tells Beat on the phone from her bedroom in West London, where her cat is trying very hard to eat her fish in front of her. “All my stand up is very personal and things have changed a lot,” she says.

“Like all the stuff about my family, that was very well received… What are you doing?!” she exclaims suddenly. “Honestly, if you could see the effort my cat is making to get to the fish. It’s a very unprofessional cat,” she jokes. “I’m having a professional interview,” she mock-scolds her determined feline from across the room.

Her personal life has changed recently. After a marriage breakdown and affair with an unnamed rock star, a period of time she now refers to as “the last bit of craziness before the calm of my daughter arriving”, she gave birth to a daughter nine months ago, and moved into a new neighbourhood. (“The street where I live we call it Ramsay Street because it’s so friendly and we all know each other”.) But she’s flying solo and creating a new family for herself, which she addresses in the show.

“I’m a single mum to both my children, they both have different fathers and I’m not with either father. In fact, my daughter’s father has never met her, so I don’t go too deep about it,” she says of the way she handles the topic onstage. “I don’t make a judgement but I do talk about what it’s like being the single mother of a baby and what it’s like being single and pregnant. It’s quite an eye opening experience in lots of ways,” she says, just back from taking her six-year-old son to school.

“I guess its different, for me personally being older, I wasn’t like a 16-year-old, I think that would be a different experience, but being established in my life and able to care of the baby by myself helped, but it taught me that whatever you expect about your own life, wholeheartedly and non-judgementally, other people do too. People only bat an eyelid when you bat an eyelid,” says Khorsandi, who has 17 years stand up experience behind her, numerous UK TV credits and is the author of the book A Beginners Guide to Acting English which is out now in paperback.

Moving into ‘Ramsay Street’ when she was pregnant was a blessing, discovering a new community there. “I couldn’t believe the monumental avalanche of support from complete strangers down the street, all the mums basically clucked around me,” she recalls. “I realised it’s fine and families are what you make them. What I’m trying to say is that in my show there’s nothing negative about my situation because it isn’t negative at all”.

BY JOANNE BROOKFIELD

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