Laughter & rain!

Despite the best summer for many years, we managed to get a very wet weekend in Devon ('twas ever thus)! The rain did not dampen our spirits though as a bracing walk in the rain was followed by a warming pub lunch and then a fantastic evening at Calstock Arts Centre, a community-run arts centre located in a beautiful converted chapel on the banks of the River Tamar just into Cornwall.

Our treat for the evening was the brilliant Shappi Khorsandi, known to us from many appearances on Radio 4, but she has also featured much on TV: Live at the Apollo, I'm a Celebrity, Mock the Week and the Graham Norton Show amongst many others. Shappi is a British comedian and author of Iranian origin. The daughter of the Iranian satirist and poet Hadi Khorsandi, she left Iran as a child following the Islamic Revolution. She comes from a long line of comedians and writers and is a delightful person and great entertainer (http://www.shappi.co.uk/about/).

Her Iranian background reminded me of one of the great graphic novels of this century - Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. Many adults don't read/like graphic novels but, believe me, some are brilliant and this one is quickly becoming a classic. It is a biographical novel based on Satrapi's childhood and early adult years growing up in Iran before and post the Islamic Revolution. It was also made into a film in 2008.

Shappi Khorsandi has written two books herself:A Beginner's Guide to Acting English (autobiographical) and Nina is not OK, her first novel. This novel was nominated for the new inaugural Jhalak prize in 2017 but Shappi withdrew it because she "“felt like my skin colour was up for an award rather than my book”.

The prize was established to recognise excellence among British black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) writers and inspire publishers within the industry to “look beyond the present narrow margins” (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jan/06/shappi-khorsandi-withdraws-book-from-jhalak-prize-longlist). This was a brave decision and it is an interesting discussion but there is no doubt that publishing, whether in adult or children's books, leans heavily towards white, often middle class, characters, out of all proportion to the population percentages of the UK.

However, Shappi's theme for the evening's show was Lady Emma Hamilton! Somewhat surprising but Shappi is a huge fan of this amazing woman, the mistress and great love of Lord Nelson. Despite spending much of the evening laughing, we also learnt a great deal about Emma and the shabby way she was treated by society and the government after Nelson's death. You can read a brief biography here: https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Emma-Lady-Hamilton/. However, it has made me want to go and read a fuller story and here are a couple of suggested reads (not read yet so no reviews possible):

Our Dearest Emma: The scandalous life of Lady Emma Hamilton by Lozania Prole. This is one of the Remarkable Women in History series so is worth a try (free on Kindle!)

Or a more serious read: The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton (also free on Kindle).

Of course we all know the story of Nelson's death at Trafalgar (although as Shappi said, as it took him some hours to die it is unlikely his last words were "Kiss me Hardy"! If you want to read a good old-fashioned story of derring do at the Battle of Trafalgar try Sharpe's Trafalgar, one of the Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell.

And I would heartily recommend you catch one of Shappi's live shows, details of which you can find on her website:

http://www.shappi.co.uk/