Known for television appearances including Live
at the Apollo and Have I got News for You, as well as her stand-up comedy and
her work as an author, Shappi Khorsandi is taking a more historical angle with
her latest show, ‘Mistress and Misfit’. Going to around 50 venues across the
country, including the Stables TONIGHT! She’ll be using her critically
acclaimed brand of stand up to tell the story of Emma, Lady Hamilton, the
actress and model best known as the mistress of Lord Admiral Nelson.
“I relate Emma’s life to modern women and,
like all stand ups, I draw people into the world as I see it so it’s a very
personal show”, Shappi explains.
“When you’re a stand-up, people have come
to see you and share the experience with you. They can read a book about Emma,
Lady Hamilton, but the way I tell her story draws people into my stand-up,
which I hope is why they bought a ticket in the first place.”
She started off trying to write a novel
about this often-misunderstood historical figure, but eventually settled on
doing a comedy show about her instead. She also outlines a few of the
similarities between them, saying that: “We were both artist’s models. She
modelled for great artists, I modelled for GCSE students in Tower Hamlets. I
have never worked in a brothel, but I have had moments that I would only tell
you about on stage or when very drunk. I will be sharing some of those stories in
‘Mistress and Misfit”.
She will also be exploring the ways in
which Emma has been dismissed by history, in a way that historical women often
are. As she explains, “Any woman who does anything seen as salacious is still
demonised today. That’s a very modern theme. It’s not exclusive to Georgian
times.
“Emma ended her days derelict, penniless and
alcoholic in Calais. There was no monument to her. We have not been told what a
massive impact Emma had on Nelson’s life. Historians have wanted to make
Trafalgar about Nelson and not ‘this harlot’.”
You may also recognise Shappi from her
recent appearance on “I’m a Celebrity”, which has also inspired her creatively.
“It made you really look at life from a
different angle” she says of the experience. “You are too hungry to think of
anything apart from what you want to do with your life. You have time to figure
that out. It made me think I really, really want to write that play.”
But underpinning everything Shappi does is
a love of comedy. “It’s a compulsion” she says. “It’s a sort of madness.
Stand-ups are all mad. We are bright, and if we weren’t mad, we’d be doing
something else.”
Forget having a boring Friday night in - Shappi
Khorsandi is appearing at the Stables TONIGHT. For tickets, go to https://stables.org/.
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