LYME REGIS: Panel show regular Shappi Khorsandi will stop off at the Marine Theatre on her UK tour next month.

Her new show, Because I'm Shappi, will reflect on the good things as Shappi celebrates her haphazard, zigzag journey towards her dreams. She will give an introduction to friends, family and total strangers who have helped her on her personal Yellow Brick Road.

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

The road-tested show, which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival last 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.

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 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 will perform at the Marine Theatre on Friday March 6.