With Richard Herring, Geoff Norcott, Count Binface and more

Robin Ince has joined the line-up of next month’s Chortle Comedy Book Festival.

The comedian and co-host of Radio 4’s long-running pop science show Infinite Monkey Cage will be talking about his book Bibliomaniac, subtitled An Obsessive's Tour of the Bookshops of Britain

In autumn 2021, his stadium tour with Professor Brian Cox was postponed due to the pandemic. Rather than do nothing, he instead decided to go on a tour of more than 100 bookshops in the UK.

Described as being ‘packed with witty anecdotes and tall tales’, the book explores Ince’s lifelong love of bookshops and books – and in this session Ince will talk specifically about comedy books and books by comedians.

This session opens the day of events on January 29 at 21Soho in central London and joins a previously announced line-up that includes Richard Herring, Geoff Norcott, Sadia Azmat and election prankster Count Binfac9

Topics under discussion will range from politics, cancer, social care, sexuality, the NHS and the birth of alternative comedy – all with the sense of humour you expect from top comedians

Taking part so far are:

• Richard Herring, whose latest book Can I Have My Ball Back? details his experiences after being diagnosed with testicular cancer

• Late Night Mash’s Geoff Norcott, whose memoirs Where Did I Go Right? describes how he became disillusioned with his Labour background  as the working-class son of a union man to become a Tory voter.

• Robin Ince, talking about his love of – and obsession with – books and bookshops.

• Sadia Azmat, whose memoirs Sex Bomb explored two sides to her personality: as a comedian who loves sex and a hijab-wearing Muslim woman.

• Jenny Lecoat and Oliver Double. One of the luminaries of the early days of alternative comedy talks to comic turned academic Double about how the scene was revolutionised from the late 1970s and early 1980s, and her subsequent career as a novelist

• Pope Lonergan, a comedian whose hilarious, tender and hard-hitting account of his day job in a care home, I’ll Die After Bingo, tells you everything you ever wanted to know (and a few things you probably really didn't) about Britain's care system

• Ed Patrick, a comedian and an anaesthetist whose memoirs The Secret Life of a Sleepless Anaesthetist give an insight into the front line of the NHS.

Discounted early-bird tickets are available from now until 11.55pm on January 1, priced  £27.50 (£22 concs) for a day ticket, or  £11.55 (£9.50) for individual sessions.

Get yours here… and date we suggest it’d be a great last-minute Christmas present for someone who loves books and comedy?

Published: 22 Dec 2022