The perfect age to start in stand-up? Three

As I write this, I'm still packing for my month at the Edinburgh Festival. I have filled a bag with pretty summer dresses and sandals, which I know I will not wear because Edinburgh is such a wet city. They really ought to put a roof over it. But I have packed them anyway, because if I don't it means that the weather has won.

I'm very superstitious about what to wear when I'm working. I will wear jeans and a fancy top for a while until
I have a stinker of a show - for which my attire, of course, will be entirely to blame. Then I will switch to dresses until they, too, let me down, and then it'll be jeans again, and so on. Some jokes work better in a short-sleeved top and some punchlines are completely ruined if I am wearing the wrong shoes. Even as I write this, I'm wondering whether I should put some socks on.

My show is called The Distracted Activist - which is just as well, because I haven't been able to learn it by heart. I've been nursing my spouse through swine flu, which really wasn't much worse than ordinary man flu. I'm hoping "all over the shop" will become a new comedy trend. We have a toddler, and what with all his various social engagements, and his busy daily schedule of painting and singing and tickling, I have to wing it a little more at work than I used to.

I was on Eight out of Ten Cats recently; I arrived at the studios with an Igglepiggle sticker stuck to my leg and the cries of "Mummy! Please not go!" ringing in my ears and tearing through my heart. While the other panellists leapt in with witty observations about celebrities and their lives, I was sitting there, all professionally made up, thinking: I hope he's OK now, I hope he eats his dinner, I hope he forgives his mummy, and - oh! I'm on television! What are we talking about? I have no idea! Say something! Anything! Oh, for God's sake, don't just sit there!

Still, it was a nice, comfy seat. And after a while they turn the cameras off and get you a cup of tea. This is the first time I am taking my son with me to Edinburgh. Next year he will be old enough to be in my show. Three is a very good age to start in stand-up, and in Edinburgh everyone needs a gimmick.

Hothousing is very popular round my way, but the posh local mums have a rather different attitude to it than I do. Recently one of the Henriettas said to me, "We've put Isabella's name down for Godolphin already." Like I would know that Godolphin is a school, as opposed to a zoo. "Oscar's not yet two but we're using flashcards and now he knows all his letters." Yeah? Well, I'm teaching my son to wink. He hasn't quite got the hang of it - he's using both eyes at the moment - but we have high hopes for him.

Legend has it that Charlie Chaplin was three or four when he was pushed from the wings on to the stage to sing because his mother's music-hall act wasn't going down well. Perhaps my son will grow up to be Charlie Chaplin.

The other day I presented an item on The One Show, which was a fun bit of moonlighting for me. Or, as we comics call it, sunlighting. My previous experience of television presenting was limited to an Open University programme when I was so young that I watched an operation because the producers told me to and it didn't occur to me I had a choice. Human fat, by the way, is yellow and smells of tuna.

I also did a stint on regional television as a roving reporter. That job changed my life. Some morris dancers performed a fertility dance without knowing that I wanted a baby and was having fertility problems. They declared that I would have my very own baby within a year, and they were right. Almost exactly a year later, my son was born.

I'm grateful to the morris dancers, but I do also live in fear that one day there will be a knock at the door and one of them will be standing there saying, "We've come for the child."

Anyway, the One Show piece was shot at the beautiful Rivoli Ballroom in Lewisham, south London. It's a proper, old-fashioned ballroom - so glamorous and untouched that it's like stepping back in time. The decor is all red velvet and flock wallpaper, gigantic chandeliers and oversized Chinese lanterns. The mirrored bar is exactly as it must have been in the Fifties. You can almost see the fancy couples canoodling in the booths as they take a breather between jives.

The owner, a nice man named Bill who loves classic cars and apple pie, told me he no longer hires it out for weddings, as the guests started getting too drunk and began to aim bottles at the million-pound chandeliers.

What an unimaginative thing to do in such a glorious place, when you could be propping up the bar and pretending you're Humphrey Bogart.

“The Distracted Activist" is at the Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, from 5-31 August
Shappi Khorsandi's book "A Beginner's Guide to Acting English" is out now, published by Ebury (£11.99). More details: www.offthekerb.co.uk

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