31 dates on the back of Britain's Got Talent success

Britain’s Got Talent star Daliso Chaponda has announced his first tour.

The comic is using his success in coming third in the ITV show to launch a 31-date UK tour for next year, entitled What The African Said…

It follows the commission of his first Radio 4 show, Citizen Of Nowhere, which will also air next year.

The Malawian-born stand-up was one of the biggest hits of this year’s BGT, with clips of his appearances attracting more than 12 million biews on YouTube. He was fast-tracked to the semi-finals when Amanda Holden used her ‘golden buzzer’ to put him through.

Chaponda said: ‘Laughter is how I cope with pain.  I have seen and experienced some horrible things but laughter helped me cope.  Telling jokes is repaying the favour.  This show is my thanks to the laughter’

His father, George, was a refugee who became a diplomat and then Malawi’s Justice Minister. That meant Chaponda spend his youth travelling from country to country, until winding up as a student in Canada.

He had never seen stand-up comedy until he went to Montreal’s Just for Laughs festival, and as there was no comedy circuit in Malawi at the time he moved to the UK to start his career.

He has since performed in Africa, but has fallen foul of censors, and received hate mail for material in support of gay rights.

Chaponda is also a prolific fiction writer and co-created and starred in Radio 4's drama When the Laughter Stops in 2014

His tour will start on February 8 at Nottingham’s Glee Club and end at Edinburgh’s Queens Hall on April 27. Full dates are here and tickets go on sale at 10am on Friday.

Published: 28 Jun 2017