Why on earth did I volunteer to do stand-up?

It was on my ‘bucket list’, but that doesn’t mean it was a sensible thing to do. Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro is something I’d like to do before I die as well, but at the age of 56 and with the lung capacity of a broken windsock I probably shouldn’t attempt it. In this particular case, though, all I was risking was public humiliation and I know from experience — lots and lots of experience — that I can survive that. So I decided to do it. I would try my hand at stand-up comedy.

This particular story begins last year at the Backyard Comedy Club in Bethnal Green. On the second Tuesday of every month, the club is taken over by Andrew Doyle, the creator of Titania McGrath, and Andy Shaw, Spectator Life’s resident satirist, who host a night of no-holds-barred humour called Comedy Unleashed. Like every other part of the entertainment industry, the world of comedy has been captured by the woke cult and these days any stand-up with mildly risqué material can find it difficult to get booked in mainstream clubs. That’s where Comedy Unleashed comes in. It’s like an

oasis of free thought — the comedy equivalent of Václav Havel’s flat in Prague in 1968. The only rule is no self-censorship. If it’s funny, it’s funny.

Anyway, in October, after watching a hilarious set by Simon Evans, one of the very few right-of-centre comedians who gets anywhere near Radio 4, I had a moment of madness. I buttonholed Doyle and Shaw and said: ‘I’d like to have a go at stand-up. Any chance of booking me in for a ten-minute slot?’

I was expecting them to sit me down in a quiet room and talk me out of it, but no.