To iran, so you are a real genuine londoner but actually i think your first language was farsi when you were a real small kid. it was. and you would go to a london school, and you were a bit of an outsider, and ijust wonder whether that difficulty of being seen as an outsider lead you to use humour as some sort of defence mechanism? is that where it all began? i think so, yeah. i was very aware that even though i went to a multicultural school, both at primary and secondary school, i did feel that i was the wrong colour, i had the wrong name. so, when i realised i was very unattractive to girls, when i was in those very difficult adolescent ages, 13,111, humour became very important to me. i started doing sketches at school to try and become validated. we often say comedians, you know, we are very hurt individuals, we are doing this to heal the wounds of our childhood and we need the laughter of strangers to validate us. but that is true.