SHAPPI KHORSANDI
Dorchester Corn Exchange

“I’VE never done a gig in a church before.”

From the moment she gets on stage, Shappi Khorsandi has an endearing, purposefully awkward style of delivery that instantly wins over the audience.

It’s one she has perfected on countless appearances on Radio 4, Live at the Apollo and nationwide tours, which is what brought her to Dorchester's Corn Exchange.

One of the UK’s foremost female comedians, her current show, Because I’m Shappi, ranges from themes of heartbreak and being a single parent to the racism she experienced as a child, all addressed in her unique blend of warmth and humour.

She resists attempts to typecast her in any particular role.

“People always ask me if it’s hard being a female comedian,” she muses.

“The thing is, I just don’t know. I’ve never looked down in the morning and found myself male for a change.”

Shappi is an accessible performer – the type you wouldn’t mind sharing a bottle of wine with and taking home to meet your gran – if she can tone down the swearing a bit.

And like any comedian worth their salt, she knows how to banter with an audience.

In fact, she spent a considerable portion of the first half of the show talking to the people in the front row.

“I don’t want to talk about me all the time,” she said, with a joke about how she is her own warm-up act and ‘Big Shappi’ will be along soon.

Fame has its drawbacks, but in the Khorsandi family it obviously isn’t something that will ever go to her head.

Her brother rang her once, upset after he found a website devoted to criticising her.

“I asked him how he found it. He told me he was bored at work so he googled ‘Shappi is sh*t’.”

And her father, an Iranian satirist and journalist who fled to the UK with his young family in the 1970s, is less than impressed by the internet trolls who target his daughter.

“Just five people?” Shappi recounts his words of advice to her.

“When there are 5,000 people chanting in the street, demanding your execution, then I will know you are a success.”

If her popular reception by Dorchester’s audience is anything to go by, I don’t think that will be happening any time soon.