Over her 20-year career, Shappi has performed sell-out shows all over the UK and internationally, been nominated for the prestigious British Comedy Award and appeared on every comedy panel from Mock The Week to Have I got News For News. In this hour, Shappi talks about what it means to be addicted to stand-up, to have a very controversial father, and to bring a pudding to a red-carpet event...
In the blink of an eye, Shappi has clocked up 50 years on this planet, a quarter-century as a comedian. What would the 25-year-old Shaparak think of this incarnation? Two dogs: very good. Tory friends: what has she become!? And why are there still so many things she doesn’t know, or is just learning now: is it going to take another 50 years? A fast-paced, celebratory hour from this much-loved Fringe institution and the author of forthcoming memoir, Scatterbrain.
Rising to fame amid the 1980s alternative comedy boom, Ian Cognito was one of the UK's most popular comedians. His performances left audiences in hysterics - but behind the laughter was a troubled and often controversial figure. This is the story of the comedy scene that nurtured a comedic genius, and the real life of a man famed for his outlandish sense of humour.
Produced over four years with full access from Ken’s widow Lady Dodd, the film takes an in-depth look into Doddy’s private world, exploring the many secrets of his comic talent, revealing never-before-seen home-videos, stage performances and extracts from some of the thousands of Ken’s diary notebooks which he’d asked his wife to burn after his death. Wrestling with her conscience for quite some time, Lady Dodd, finally agrees with entertainment historians, museum curators and many of Ken’s admirers like Stephen K Amos, Harry Hill, Shaparak Khorsandi, Lee Mack, Paul O’Grady, Johnny Vegas, and Sir Ian McKellen to preserve Doddy’s notebooks for posterity. These stars explore their passion and memories of Ken in this candid, insightful film which takes you backstage behind the red curtain to reveal a far more intriguing man than the public or even his wife ever realised.
In September 1909 a small group of determined girls gatecrashed a Boy Scout Rally and asked for 'something for the girls'. That simple action inspired a movement that now boasts ten million members in 145 countries. In this film we look back at the extraordinary story of guiding past and present, with the help of some amazing archive footage and interviews with famous former Brownies and Guides, including Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, Dame Kelly Holmes, Kate Silverton and Shappi Khorsandi.
The Secret Policeman's Ball 2008 was a show in the "Secret Policeman's Balls" series of benefit shows for Amnesty International. Like its immediate predecessor, the show was a single-night event at London's Royal Albert Hall, on Saturday 4 October 2008. The 3-hour event was video-taped and a 95-minute television special adapted from the show was broadcast the following day, on Britain's Channel Four. There was also a "cinecast" in which the Royal Albert Hall event was shown live in 35 cinemas in major British cities.
A star-studded documentary revealing the private man behind one of Britain’s greatest comic geniuses, using home movies and extracts from notebooks that he wanted to be burnt after his death.