I’m in Pakistan, invited by the Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop in Lahore as part of its 25th festival of performing arts. Before I arrived, there were obviously concerns that I might not come back. So my manager rang up the organisers with the predictable questions: “You want her to perform comedy in Pakistan? Really? Do you have security? Will they get it? Do they speak English? Aren’t there more suicide [...]

I’m in America. I walked into a Hollywood office this afternoon and the first question someone asked me was, “Is it true that Gordon Brown has commented on a radio scandal in England?” “From what I’ve read, this seems to be true,” I replied. “Is it a big scandal? Is there not a recession in England? Hasn’t there been an earthquake in Pakistan? Is there a war in the Congo? [...]

A few days ago a comedian friend of mine called me from LA to tell me that he was being sued. A member of the public was suing him for making jokes on the radio which involved African Americans. The man claimed he made too many jokes about African Americans and not enough about white women.

Last week, while doing a gig in the East End, I referred to some [...]

It’s been a historic week. O J Simpson has been found officially guilty. Sir Ian Blair has been found unofficially guilty. (I’m glad he’s left, though, because it means one less beige person may get shot this year.) Barack Obama has been linked to terrorism, again. It was my birthday. And I was sent to Torquay.

I had been sent to Torquay to perform at the English Riviera International Comedy [...]

This week I was the victim of another terrorist attack in London, which made none of the headlines, and I was asked to start the Tree-Athlon in Battersea Park on Saturday morning. This is a five-kilometre run to raise money to plant trees all over London and make it look more like the Bahamas, and less like a Poundshop car park.

A few days earlier I had agreed to go [...]

There is a bit of America in all of us. For some, it has forced its way in, and for others like myself it’s crept in, unbeknownst, in the middle of the night, and now won’t leave.

This week I've been on holiday in Istanbul. It's a spiritual place, where even the criminals are spiritual. I was walking along the Bosporus when a man approached and said very politely: "Can [...]

Tonight is the last night of the Edinburgh Festival. It’s like the last day of school: you empty out your comedy drawer, taking home all your old pens and pencils, and then worry about going to big school.

I would love to be able to tell you the truth about what’s been going on here over the past month, but I’m not in a position to do that just yet. [...]

I am at the Edinburgh Festival, where I have been complaining since I arrived about the terrible weather – but today it saved my dignity.

I was told by my manager that I would be on MacAulay and Co, Fred MacAulay's radio show on BBC Radio Scotland, on Monday morning. Two days earlier I'd received a phone call from the producer of the show saying: "You must turn up to [...]

I am a voyeur. I spend most of my life on the outside, observing the inside of other people’s lives.

A few months ago, a man named Mr Hitchen called me from Dorset. "I've got a wonderful little theatre in the village of Bridport. I was wondering if you'd like to come and play it?"

This man was so well spoken, I couldn't work out whether he was posh or [...]

The Edinburgh Festival begins in a few weeks’ time. I will be performing there in a container that looks like a caravan – it’s called the Baby Grand. I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night having wishful nightmares about the experience: I hope no one comes to my show, I hope the caravan burns down or someone tows it away, I hope the festival gets cancelled and [...]