Shaparak Khorsandi

My perfect weekend: Shappi Khorsandi

Stand-up comedian Shappi Khorsandi loves Paris in the spring.

Lord Reith would be so proud. A show to entertain and inform in one ever-so-very clever package. John Lloyd cuts the ribbon to open the third level of the Museum, revealing yet more empty plinths. Filling them with their donations this week are cosmologist Marcus Chown who, frankly, made my brain bleed with his scientific proof of the afterlife, Terry Pratchett's brilliant idea of a time bank ("the minute in your pocket will never be devalued") and Shappi Khorsandi's great anti-dictator. The guests are gold dust but curator Jon Richardson is no slacker when it comes to the sliver-sharp retort. It will make you laugh as much as it will make you think. Pornography for the brain!

Hey guys! Remember the 80s? They were wicked, right? When we all wore frizzy hair, red braces, ra-ra skirts and everyone had a Sinclair C5? Finger-on-the-pulse BBC2 has bought into the 80s nostalgia boom of, um, the late 1990s and has asked some people to take time off from the after-dinner speaking circuit to declaim about them, while Geoffrey Palmer pretends he cares. We feel obliged to warn you that Shappi Khorsandi is all over this.

John Lloyd, once a BBC Light Entertainment producer (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, e.g.), now, after glittering adventures in TV and film, a don of the comedy world, returns with a new series of a recent invention. He and comedian Jon Richardson are pretend curators of an imaginary museum to which visiting celebrities tender possible new acquisitions. Tonight author Terry Pratchett brings a secret extra day of the week, cosmologist Marcus Chown has a plausible scientific theory of the afterlife and comedian Shappi Khorsandi offers Charlie Chaplin.

Shappi Khorsandi interview

Fiery British Iranian comic Shappi Khorsandi gives her views on everything from the X-Factorisation of politics to single mums and pasty cellulite.

For this two-hour bonanza in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity, Channel 4 recently assembled 24 of Britain's best comedians to perform in front of a live audience at the O2 arena in London. So - deep breath - Jack Dee, Andy Parsons, David Mitchell, Fonejacker, Jack Whitehall, Jo Brand, James Corden, Jason Manford, John Bishop, Kevin Bridges, Kevin Eldon, Lee Evans, Mark Watson, Michael McIntyre, Noel Fielding, Patrick Kielty, Rich Hall, Rob Brydon, Ruth Jones, Sean Lock, Catherine Tate and Shappi Khorsandi take turns on stage to make it the biggest live stand-up show in British history. If that's not enough for you, Alan Carr and Bill Bailey perform with Stomp and Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Johnny Depp provide additional sketches.

This stand-up comedy show at the O2 Arena in London features a barnstorming roll-call of British comedians all stepping up to the mic in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity. The bill includes Alan Carr, Bill Bailey, Catherine Tate, David Mitchell, The Fonejacker, Jack Dee, Jo Brand, Lee Evans, Michael McIntyre, Noel Fielding, Patrick Kielty, Rich Hall, Rob Brydon and Shappi Khorsandi. If you can't find somebody in that list who makes you laugh, it's possible that you have, indeed, had all your funny bones surgically removed.

For the uninitiated, The Museum of Curiosity is presented by comedy producer/godlike genius John Lloyd, and he's joined by a different 'curator' each series; Bill Bailey, Sean Lock and now the brilliant Jon Richardson. Three contributors - comedians, scientists, authors, historians, generally fascinating people - donate something the museum each week, and that something can be absolutely anything, no matter how huge, tiny, fictional or dead. I won't give away what Shappi Khorsandi, Terry Pratchett and Marcus Chown ("cosmology consultant of New Scientist") gave to the museum in the episode I saw recorded, but I will say that all three spoke passionately about their donation, and that Chown's made my brain hurt for days. The series will air later in the Spring.

Shappi Khorsandi: From Tehran to Enid Blyton

The stand-up comedian recalls the often comic upheaval of fleeing to Britain with her family from Iran in 1979.

Here's a tinsel-brandishing variety show for the rationally minded. Recorded at the Hammersmith Apollo in London before Christmas - or should that be Yule? - it features a motley collection of performers. Atheist-in-chief Richard Dawkins leads the cast which includes physicist Brian Cox, Ben 'Bad Science' Goldacre, writer Simon Singh, musician Robyn Hitchcock and comics Richard Herring, Mark Steel, Shappi Khorsandi, Barry Cryer and Ronnie Golden.