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Top Comedian Celebrates Market Festival With Hit Show

Monday 25th October 2010

The end of the week sees the beginning of Chesterfield’s Market Festival - a weekend of celebration and fun in and around the town centre.

Shappi Korsandi Plays at the Pomegranate Theatre on Thursday 28th octoberAhead of her visit to Chesterfield to take part in the festival, the Chesterfield Post had a chat with comedian Shappi Korsandi who will be performing her hit show 'Moon on a stick' at the Pomegranate Theatre on Thursday 28th.

Shappi is instantly recognizable to most of us due to her appearances on 'Have I Got News for You?' and 'Live at the Apollo' but she's also a successful stand up comedian and regular contributor to current affairs programmes such as Question Time and Woman's Hour on Radio 4. In a wide-ranging interview we spoke (and laughed!) about many things including Shappi's life as a single mum and her work.

The show centres around Shappi's experiences as a single parent, bringing up a 3-year-old son, and focusing on that first hard year of adjustment to a new life after a break up, "The show's about my last 12 months, it's hard - the adjustment you make when a relationship breaks up is strange, like being thrown on to a different planet, it's almost as big a leap as having a new baby.

" 'Moon on a Stick' came about as I had to write a new show for Edinburgh and that was really all that was on my mind, I couldn't think about anything else so ... that's why it happened."

During our interview, Shappi is lively and articulate, and cares passionately about single parenthood. She admits that even before she became a single parent she was full of admiration for lone parents.

I asked her, as a working mum, if she thought women can have it all?

"You know what, I don't know! I think you can, but it's exhausting. You have to figure out whether you are getting pleasure from any of it. I think as long as you're not dead and you're healthy, you've got it all!

"I have a good support network - my mum, good neighbours who take me to the shops and a lovely girl who lives with me, helping out with babysitting and stuff, so yeah. I'm very lucky."

Like all of us with children, she worries whether she gets the balance right. "It's incredibly difficult. I wonder sometimes if I'm doing the right thing.

"I'm lucky because I can bring him with me on tour, but worry that he's sitting in a dressing room, but I reckon that there are a million ways to raise a child so whatever works is good, as long as he's with me he doesn't mind. When he's a teenager going "Mum, do I really have to go to the Edinburgh Festival AGAIN??" - I may have to rethink it - but for now it works."

Asked abut her career she replies that " 'Have I Got News For You' was great fun - a dream come true because it's one of my favourite programmes - that and the Graham Norton Show were the most fun. The guys are brilliant, Paul [Merton] and Ian [Hislop] are incredible at that programme. It's nerve-racking, but not half as nerve-racking as Question Time - once you've done that, nothing makes you nervous!"

Towards the end of our interview, we return to the subject of single parenthood. I ask if she thinks that the cuts will make life harder for single parents. Shappi is vocal in her defence of lone parents once again.

"The attitude I find difficult is the one which says 'if a woman wants another baby, why is it my job to look after it?' As far as cuts go I can see both sides, but I am surprised about how many people were saying scrap Child Benefit altogether, why should I pay for it?

"If you don't support single mums and what they're doing, you're going to have to put up with those children when they become adults - single mums are heroes, I don't know what I'd have done without my husband when I first had my son and I looked at single mums and wondered how they coped.

"I don’t know anyone who just had a baby to claim benefits and I live on an estate. I think it’s a myth."

Shappi hasn't been to Chesterfield before and is looking forward to it. Having spoken to her for 20 minutes or so, I can imagine Chesterfield and her audience will be in for a treat too come Thursday.

Intelligent, articulate and wickedly funny, she'll be a festival hit for sure.

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