Daliso Chaponda tours stand-up comedy show to Derbyshire

He was a huge hit on last year’s TV talent show where Alisha Dixon commented that her face was hurting from laughing so much.

Daliso came third in the competition and on the back of that exposure garnered nine million views on YouTube.

Now fans in Derbyshire will be able to see Malawian-born Daliso in the flesh when he brings his live stand-up show to Chesterfield’s Winding Wheel on June 8.

The show, entitled What The African Said. is about recent news, old news, fake news, and stories that were almost news. It is also a show about the things we say to each other; gossip, tall stories and of course declarations of love.

Daliso has lived in countries where the press is not allowed to criticise the government, and in others with no libel laws where they can say anything. He has

been both a journalist and a jaded newsreader. He is the perfect comedian to discuss what the media has become.

His father was a refugee who became a diplomat and he, therefore, grew up bouncing from country to country. Daliso always wanted to be a novelist, but his family pressured him to study programming and he ended up at university in Canada.

During this time he wrote funny science fiction that occasionally got published. He had never seen stand-up comedy until he went to Montreal Just for Laughs. There was no comedy circuit in Malawi so he eventually moved to the UK and started performing with at open mic nights that let to circuit gigs.

Daliso has appeared at many festivals including those in Singapore, Cape Town, Melbourne and Edinburgh.

He is also a prolific fiction writer and has had his science fiction, murder mysteries and fantasy fiction published in numerous magazines and anthologies.

Tickets cost £17.70 for his show in Chesterfield which is suitable for ages 12+. To book, call 01246 345222 or go to www.chesterfieldtheatres.co.uk