The sweaty-palmed, dry-mouthed dread of public speaking ranks as the world’s numero uno phobia.

A massive 75% or more of us are affected by ‘glossophobia’ - and that’s why I find our attempts to tackle it so fascinating.

How people hold a room or get tongue-tied, over-dominate or waffle on, and all the other revealing traits that emerge when we’re thrust up on stage; under pressure under a spotlight, inescapably exposed in front of a sea of eyeballs where there’s really nowhere to hide.

Performing stand-up comedy is surely the most formidable of all the public speaking challenges, where if your jokes don’t connect with the audience sharpish, the slippery slope towards the pit of raw humiliation comes well-greased.

It takes a rare gumption to willfully put yourself in that position, (the social certainties of being a shouty/smug alpha male help keep the wind in some sails, too). So when I chanced upon Fathiya Saleh owning the room in front of a mic for a full hour at a recent gig, I was suitably impressed.

As she revealed via a series of autobiographical gags - being born and raised in Camden as the youngest of eight siblings, by parents who had fled the fighting in Somalia - hers was not the standard path to stand-up stardom.

And yet that particular, even-rarer-than-the-phobia series of events and cultural influences is exactly what has combined for her to cut a path as a hotly-tipped comedy talent.

“When I was growing up, my brothers would get me watching American stand-ups like Katt Williams and Bernie Mac, and UK TV shows like 8 Out of 10 Cats, so I’d always had a love for comedy,” she tells me.

But it was a chance challenge, just as she was graduating from Goldsmiths University, that gave her a taste for actually being the one up on stage.

“I was helping at the Fresher’s Fair, and the Comedy Society approached me to ask if I’d like to sign up. I told them I was leaving, but they offered me a five-minute slot at their open mic anyway, and I thought why not? So I took it as a sign, went away and wrote some material that I’m sure was all terrible, but I did it.

“Then Covid hit, so I didn’t do anything else for ages, but I did remember that initial feeling, and how I’d really enjoyed it.”

A post-lockdown training at Soho Theatre and loyalty to her first boutique agent paid off when the agent moved to the massive United Artists agency - and took Fathiya with her.

United had actually already seen and approached the aspiring comic, “but I felt like I was cheating on my manager, so I’d turned them down! I think I’m too honest for my own good sometimes, but I always thought comedy would be just a hobby,” she laughs. “I’d got gigs off my own back just by being nice to people, yet somehow I ended up signed with United anyway.”

Being a charming, genuine personality wasn’t just good for business, it is also the exact point of difference that makes her shows stand out. A wildly ‘goofy, silly’ humour, that’s infectious without needed to be outrageous, and delivered by a self-assured young woman whom society may not expect to be so irreverent and bubbly, wrongfooting preconceptions with a stream of jokes.

From her ballsy but endearing attitude with crowd interactions to a willingness to explore the complex contradictions that will be familiar to anyone trying to navigate their place in society when often being seen as religiously or racially ‘other’, this feels very much like the comedy we need right now.

“Whatever you do as a job, there’s a tendency for us not to want to stick out or be different,” she says. “But as I’ve got older, I’ve realised that being a bit different doesn’t have to alienate you from everyone else. You can tell your story and still feel part of a community with everyone, and it’s kind of nice that you have your own thing.”

Fathiya references her mother repeatedly in her routine, astounded that she’s now same age she was when brining five children out of Somalia, having a sixth in Egypt and two more in London, setting up a life here for them all having arrived speaking little to no English.

“She did an amazing job. I mean, I get stressed out with such simple things, I can’t begin to think how she did it all.” Of course, the big question is how mum views her youngest daughter’s fledgling stand-up career?

“In the beginning I thought she was going to hate it, but she was like ‘as long as you are keeping in cute and classy, why would I not want you to follow your dream?’ The first time she came to one of my shows I gave her a little shout out ‘hey everyone, my mum’s here and it’s her first time!’ and she stood up waving her arms in the air and took a little bow, like the whole show was for her.”

Having worked for Fitzrovia Youth Action for many years, often visiting her old school, Acland Burghley, for workshops, Fathiya is also deeply embedded in all things Camden, even if she does mercilessly let rip about some aspects of local life up on stage.

“I’m a sucker for community,” she beams, as we talk about fond memories of growing up around here, and the genuine diversity of the place, which is thankfully now being more widely represented in comedy, too . “I’m just really proud of living here,” she says, although she does bemoan the lack of funding for council support these days.

“Whenever I say this people always think I’m being so endearing, but I feel like we all really just want the same things. We just want to be happy, we want to find love, or we want to be loved. We just want good experiences, good memories, and my stand-up is all about reminding you of that when all the stress, and capitalism gets you feeling jaded.”

As the rapidly tail-spinning right wing get their proverbial knickers in a twist over the election of another local Somali-British woman, Sagal Abdi-Wali, as the MP for Holborn & St Pancras, people here in the Camden bubble could not be more enthused and inspired to see such fresh representation for our borough.

And as the list of pale, stale, male comics winding up disgraced by their past actions continues to grow, these proudly Camden women are offering the previously overlooked and undervalued perspectives we need to hear, whether that’s in the House of Commons or in front of a mic in a basement comedy joint.

Find out more about Fathiya and when she’s next on stage via her Insta.

FOOD 🥪 Neapolitan pizzeria people Fatto a Mano, who you may know from their popular local outposts in Pancras Square and Dean St, open their first sandwich shop just around the corner in Soho, on Mon 16th Nov. Fulvio’s takes it's name from the baker of outstanding focaccia in their original Brighton branch (pictured above), and promises that every sandwich will be freshly made before your eyes with ingredients such as Mortadella with 24-month aged Parmesan, or Prosciutto di Parma with mozzarella.

STAGE 🎭 For a quirky, participatory performance for a group of strangers, head to Camden People’s Theatre tonight or tomorrow Fri 13th-Sat 14th Nov for HUG PIECE, where the audience is invited into a shared dance tracking everything from the beginning to the end of the universe - and the world's largest hug ceremony.

SHOW 🎭 Camden Canal Museum’s fabulous Gatti’s Music Hall event sees their historic home - including the deep wells that ice cream entrepreneur Carlo Gatti used to store his precious Norwegian import ice in - transformed into a Victorian era music hall for one night only on Sat 21st Nov.

MUSIC 🎶Iconic African singer Fatoumata Diawara brings her emotive and deeply personal performance to Chalk Farm’s Roundhouse on Wed 18th Nov, as part of the ongoing EFG London Jazz Festival. Fearlessly tackling topics like forced marriages and FGM in her mother tongue, Bambara, you can expect a powerful night of voice, rhythm and storytelling.

BOOKS 📖 Persephone Books unearths neglected fiction and non-fiction, mostly by women writers dating from the mid-twentieth century, and reprints them in a beautiful grey cover with a striking patterned endpaper. They also publish short stories, diaries, memoirs, poetry, gardening and cookery books. You may remember them from Lambs Conduit St half a decade ago, and now they’re back in the area, having just opened in the lovely corner spot of the sadly lost Pollock’s Toy Museum on Fitzrovia’s Scala St.

Our reliably nasal transport aficionado Jago Hazzard is back again this week with a deep dive into the never-changing chaos of Camden Town Underground station, and the various reasons it’s never been redeveloped, despite massive overcrowding at the weekends.