Shappi Khorsandi - Asylum Speaker

Published Monday 21 August 2006 at 11:30 by Nick Awde

Within the space of a few seconds Shappi Khorsandi has already got everyone laughing and at ease. Yes, the attic space is like a furnace, yes it’s not an easy time to be Iranian, and yes thank you she has lost weight. But despite her admission of being a classic “box ticker” case, you’ll get none of that traditional women’s stand-up nor a bleeding-heart Muslim liberal.

The more specific Khorsandi gets, the more universal her humour becomes. And possibly this was only show in history where two buckets of ice were spontaneously passed round a sweltering audience. The show’s title derives from the fact that her family came to the UK as asylum seekers “long before it was fashionable”, protected by the terrorist squad in London after a car bomb plot was uncovered to murder her father.

Iran, understandably, then gets several mentions, including the present Iranian president - “mullah lite” - whose recent comments on obliterating Israel get Khorsandi wondering how he would deal with this in terms of PR disaster limitation. This somehow leads into the comic consequences of her country of birth

changing its name from Persia which in turn leads into a barbed history lesson of international intrigue between the shah, the ayatollahs and the West that Rob Newman would be envious of.

A whizz through subjects such as halal wine, Asian speed dating and Iranian first names, pokes gentle fun at the accidental racism and attitudes she still encounters. You also think a bit. And, since she claims to have checked with The Guardian over what’s PC and isn’t, you can breathe easy and let those laughs out.

This year’s show ends with a lengthy section on Khorsandi’s dad, a satirist driven twice out of his homeland. Touching, scary, funny, his life story manages to sum up US policy in the Middle East, our paranoid security here in the UK, and her own identity as a devoted Iranian daughter growing up in the leafy suburbs, concealing the English rose lurking within.

You also get to understand exactly where his daughter gets her wicked sense of humour from.