A PERSONAL show packed with heartbreak and laughter is being brought to Dorchester tonight by one of the country’s foremost female comics.

Shappi Khorsandi is performing Because I’m Shappi at the Corn Exchange in the county town tonight from 8pm.

The daughter of an exiled writer and comic from Iran, Shappi’s upbringing has been in no way conventional.

Because I’m Shappi is taking the 41-year-old all over the country, including 12 nights at the Soho Theatre in London.

She said: “It’s very personal. It’s about being pregnant when I was single and being a lone parent.”

The road-tested show, which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival this year, has evolved as the tour progressed, Shappi said.

She added: “Three months go by and you go: ‘Oh, that’s how I’m meant to do that joke.’ It does get funnier and sharper.

“Some of them get kicked out, some of them get sent to borstal – it does change.”

Shappi, who counts BBC One’s Have I Got News For You and BBC Radio 4’s Just A Minute among her appearances, says the range of people coming to see her shows has widened over the years.

She said: “It delights me when I see a lot of people coming on their 18th birthdays as well as stag nights and hen nights.

“My demographic has certainly changed over the years.”

Her strangest experience on the way to a gig came from sharing cultural heritage with another popular comedian, she says.

“A man on the train asked me if I was Omid Djallili’s wife because I’m Iranian and that was quite baffling.

“I wish I could tell you I was abducted by aliens on the way to a gig. It’s happened after, but never before.”

Away from the stage, plenty of smiles are provided in her home life. She said: “I’ve got to say my children make me laugh, otherwise I’d be a terrible parent.”

Shappi’s early childhood was spent in Tehran.

Her father, Hadi, was a satirist, journalist and comedian but his criticisms of the regime ultimately led to the family having to flee Iran for their own safety.

They moved temporarily to London. But soon after, police arrived on the doorstep informing them of a plot to kill Hadi, and that was it – they never returned.

Shappi has gigged internationally in the United States, the Middle East, Singapore, Australia and Amsterdam.

She is a sought-after cultural commentator, appearing on ITV’s Sunday Edition, BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, Radio 5 Live, BBC World Service & LBC and also in The Guardian, The Independent, Metro and on the BBC News website. She was also a panellist on BBC’s Que-stion Time.

Comedy is a family business for the Khorsandis. In Los Angeles, Shappi performed in a seven-week sell-out run with her brother in a show called How to be Iranian, as well as starring in her own one hour show.

Shappi is part of a new wave of female comedians who now account for 14 per cent of comedy tickets sold.

The figure has gone up drastically since 2009, when women were producing just two per cent of the industry’s takings.

Shappi said: “It’s great to see the surge in female comedians, stamping out the prejudice.

“We have still further to go though. I’d like to see more female comics enjoying the dominance that men do on the bigger stages.

“Perhaps we are not capturing the public’s imagination in the same way, but it is all changing for the better and we are well on the way to enjoying equal success with our comedy brothers.”

Shappi Khorsandi is at the Dorchester Corn Exchange tonight from 8pm. Doors and the bar are open from 7.30pm. See dorchesterarts.org.uk for more information.