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Award winning comedian Shappi Khorsandi spoke to Jonny Irving ahead of her narrative stand-up piece ‘Me and my brother in our pants, holding hands’.
happi Khorsandi was such an avid reader in her younger days her parents worried about her social skills. So it’s ironic that Shappi now makes her living from talking to complete strangers and making them laugh. “I have been inspired by books in general, I think we all have.” said Shappi. She is coming to the Words by the Water festival to perform her well-acclaimed narrative stand-up piece Me and My Brother in our Pants, Holding Hands. The show will tell the audience the story of her relationship with her brother, a show described by the London Evening Standard as: “About a brother and sister who were best friends but also beat each other up. Piercingly funny material.” Shappi’s rise stardom has seen a series of high profile appearances on Live at the Apollo, Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow and Have I Got News For You among many more. She is also the star of her own show on Radio 4 ‘Shappi’s Talk’ As a 2010 British Comedy Award Nominee she is looking forward to coming to Cumbria, and
performing at the festival: “The audience at festivals is very different to normal. They’re lovely gigs to play. The comic John Richardson says Keswick is amazing, so I’m looking forward to spending a weekend in Keswick and seeing what it’s like.” However, she has an unusual favourite place in Cumbria: “I have been on lots of holidays to the Lake District, but Shap is my favourite place because it’s my namesake. Even though I have never actually been there.” Originally born in Tehran, Iran she fled to London with her family after the 1979 revolution. She has built a great career here in UK but still has a deep connection with the people. On the current Middle East conflicts Shappi says: “I hope it’s going to be resolved without military action. It’s a difficult time for everyone involved; it should be dealt with through politics.”
AN EVENING OF PANTS COMEDY VVITH SHAPPI By Darren Harper
Friday 9th: 8pm – THE MAIN HOUSE
CONVERSATIONS VVITH DAVID HOCKNEY BY MARTIN GAYFORD By Liam Budd Martin Gayford is a British writer who, in his own words, writes mostly about art and jazz. His newest book ‘A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney’ will be under discussion when he appears at the festival this year.
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artin Gayford has spent most of his working life as an art critic. Currently he is the chief art critic for Bloomberg News whilst also contributing regularly for the Telegraph as well as many other art magazines. Throughout the course of his career Gayford has written four books, each one focusing on a particular artist and over a very specific timeframe. For instance, his first book The Yellow House looks at Vincent Van Gogh over a period of nine weeks in his life. Following the publication of this book -which gained critical acclaim both here in the UK and overseas in America- Martin then went on to write books about the artists John Constable and Lucian Freud. Interestingly the latter of which, titled Man in a Blue Scarf, details the time when Martin posed for Lucian over a period of around 250 hours. The painting, which was given the same title as the book, then went on to hang in the National Portrait Gallery. Martin’s latest book once again uses a singular artist as its subject. In A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney, Gayford speaks with one of Britain’s most well-known and most
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popular living artists. Hockney, born in Bradford, but now based in Bridlington and London, spent time with the author last year discussing the finer points of his career and his life and art as a whole. We are given the privilege to look back and learn about Hockney’s time studying in London, working in California and moving back home to his beloved Yorkshire. He also discusses art theory and art history with Gayford addressing predominantly ‘the paradoxes of representing a three-dimensional world on a flat surface’. Most specifically the book looks on Hockney’s latest obsession with painting wide reaching landscapes and trees. The book comes at a time when David Hockney seems very much in fashion, with his new exhibition of art created on his iPad this book seems to fit in perfectly at the moment. However, it also will appeal to anybody who is interested in not only David Hockney, but the British Art Scene and the actual reasoning behind the creation of painting and art.
Saturday 3rd: 11.30pm – THE MAIN HOUSE
“The paradoxes of representing a threedimensional world… on a flat surface”