Comic tried stand-up after compiling a bucket list after a road accident

James Acaster has told how he took up comedy as part of a ‘bucket list’ after he was in a serious car smash.

In his memoirs, Classic Scrapes, the comic previously wrote about having a  ‘midlife crisis’ at the tender age of 18 after a crash in which he totalled his parents’ Ford Fiesta – one of three cars he has written off in his life.

Now he has told the Song Exploder podcast he did his first comedy gig as part off an ‘era of my life where I was like, "Let's just do everything".

'I'd had this car accident that really freaked me out. I emerged without a scratch but I really got obsessed with, "Oh I won't be here forever", so it was a bit of a bucket-list lifestyle.’

He was in a band and signed with a volunteering service in his Kettering hometown, which put his name forward for a comedy workshop without asking him. 

Acaster told podcast host Hrishikesh Hirway: ‘I did that for nine weeks, did a gig on the 10th, even then I was thinking, "I'm not going to do this as a job." I was in a band.’

But when the band broke up, Acaster, now 40, said he’d continue with   stand-up ‘just for the adventure of it’.

Published: 29 Mar 2025