Shappi Khorsandi review: Tale of parallels has too many tangents

It's out of the jungle and into the 18th century for Shappi Khorsandi.

After being attacked by ants on I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! she has got the stand-up bug again, with an academic twist.

In Mistress And Misfit, Khorsandi explores Emma Hamilton, Lord Nelson’s lover, noting parallels with her own life. Both spent time in Calais. Hamilton after Nelson’s death, while Khorsandi visited the refugee camp, where a fellow VIP thought the Iran-born comedian was a resident.

Elsewhere further overlaps emerge. Both did life modelling, although only Khorsandi did it for students in Tower Hamlets.

Nelson’s paramour was once a prostitute; Khorsandi tells of a youthful sexual trade-off that some might say was similar. Any chance of this being a dry lecture is avoided by frequent digressions — if anything there are too many.

Mistress And Misfit is no Live at the Apollo gagfest, but given our guide’s affability, it is certainly never dull.

If TV historian Lucy Worsley fancies a sabbatical this stand-up could stand in. As long as she sticks to the subject.