...as Evil Genius is renewed and he writes a sitcom about his dad

Russell Kane is to become a children’s author.

The comic has written what’s described as ‘a hilarious guide to all the usual and unusual personalities of household pets’ to help children when choosing their own animal companions.

Entitled Pets Selector! and illustrated by Erica Salcedo, the book will be published by Words & Pictures in May.

It is aimed at 7-11-year-olds and its 112 pages feature more 40 pets and breeds including ‘adorable pugs, fluffy poodles, hairless sphynxes and chatty budgies’.

Kane – the father of an eight-year-old daughter, Mina –  previously wrote the memoirs Son Of A Silverback, released in 2019, and the novel The Humorist, about a comedy critic who could never smile, which was published in 2012.

The news comes as it has been announced that the comic is to make a new series of his BBC podcast, Evil Genius. Twelve new episodes will be released in January, following its reinvention as a Sky History TV show this month.

In each episode, Kane and his celebrity panel, will interrogate the reputation of a famous face from history in order to determine whether they’re a sinner or sinned against.

The comic said: ‘I can’t say exactly which dead famous people my panel of funny guests will be judging… but let’s just say I expected to be trolled like Billy Goat Gruff on a rickety bridge. 

‘"At what point does the greatness become less important than the bastardness?" That’s the question the new series will again be tackling.’

Kane is also writing a sitcom based on his dad, who he describes as a ‘knuckle-dragging, old-school, shaven-headed, triple-ripple-steroid-injecting, aggressive, depressed, Essex male Right-wing bully racist’  – but whom he still loved.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph earlier this month, the comic says he aims to play his father if the show – entitled You Can’t Say Anything Now – gets picked up.

Published: 30 Nov 2023