Shappi Khorsandi

Shappi Khorsandi (born June 8, 1973), who now performs under her full name Shaparak Khorsandi, is an Iranian-born British comedian and author. She is the daughter of the Iranian political satirist and poet Hadi Khorsandi. Her family left Iran for the United Kingdom following the 1979 revolution, after her father made a joke that was seen as critical of the revolutionary regime, and she frequently references her Iranian heritage and reactions to it in her stand-up performances. She graduated from King Alfred's College, now the University of Winchester, in 1995 with a drama, theatre, and television degree, and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the university in 2010.

Khorsandi rose to national prominence after her 2006 Edinburgh Festival Fringe show Asylum Speaker, which drew on her experience of leaving Iran and her fear upon learning of death threats to her father. Mark Monahan of The Daily Telegraph praised the show as "lively, ambitious and interesting," and Jasper Gerard of The Sunday Times called Khorsandi the "surprise hit" of the Fringe. Her appearance at The Secret Policeman's Ball 2008 for Amnesty International, by her own account, "led to regular TV bookings, including Live at the Apollo." In 2000, she was runner-up in the Hackney Empire New Act of The Year and was nominated for the BBC New Comedy Award.

She has featured on numerous British television and radio programmes, including the BBC Radio 4 programme Shappi Talk (2009 and 2010) and I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! in 2017. Khorsandi has also authored several books: her memoir A Beginner's Guide to Acting English was published in 2009, her first novel, Nina is Not OK, in 2016, her young adult novel Kissing Emma in 2021, and the autobiographical Scatter Brain in 2023.