Before & Laughter: The funniest man in the UK’s genuinely useful guide to life

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Jimmy Carr: hilarious, successful and unmissable. At the top of his game, he is an award-winning comedian who consistently performs to sell-out arenas around the world. He's also, by his own admission, a happy guy. Yet it wasn't always like that.

He delves into specific moments and incidents in his own life that shows how he managed to make it work for him. And because we're talking Jimmy Carr here, there are jokes, jokes and more jokes throughout. This is self-analysis through the power of laughter at its most rewarding.Carr opens up admirably in the book about his mental health, his problem drinking and the grief he experienced when his mother died in 2001, just as his comedy career was beginning. “I found the book incredibly cathartic to write,” he says. “Especially about my mother. There’s that lovely phrase, that you die twice – once when you die, and again the last time someone says your name. So I loved that thing of being able to talk about my mum.”

I think if you have a friend that’s tetraplegic you have to be quite chatty, because obviously the typing takes him so long,” he says, in a remark that feels like one of his jokes but isn’t. “We’d do shots together sometimes too. His care team said tequila would be too much, so he’d be on the Cointreau.” Perhaps this unusual devotion to his mum (“I suppose a therapist would tell you I was ‘enmeshed’”) is why he found himself still a virgin at 26, although he says the situation never bothered him. “It’s, like, not everyone’s doing that at the same time. But if you’re watching Euphoria on TV as a 16-year-old you’re going to think, ‘What the f**k? I’ve never had a threesome – what’s going on?’”I'm sort of trying to bank another tour, I'm trying to change my style a little bit stand-up wise" he told fellow comics Lou Conran and Sally-Anne Hayward on their Spit or Swallow podcast. "I find writing jokes very easy and I find writing routines more difficult. And so I'm trying to write more routines. Reflecting upon his accomplishments, Carr told Dane Baptiste on his podcast that "I'm writing this thing at the moment, thinking about the past a lot, when I became a success. As a result he spent his first 12 years of comedy success avoiding alcohol completely. “Which was much better. You have better conversations. The only thing about being sober around comedians is that, around 2am, you might as well f**k off home. You’re just going to be told the same anecdote again.” I wonder if all this talk of wubbwubb has softened his act. “No. I’ve been writing new stuff and it’s brutal. My sense of humour doesn’t change.”

How often does it happen? “I try not to think about it, because I think you’d be looking for it. But it happens occasionally.” Jimmy Carr has written his autobiography in the form of a self-help book, British Comedy Guide can exclusively reveal. He trails off and reconsiders what he’s just said. “No, I think I probably was a little bit stressed about it, a bit down about it,” he decides. “But it was probably a good thing, because if things had been a bit better in my early 20s I might not have quit my job for comedy.” A recent review said: “Many of his one-liners are barely jokes at all, just boorish cliches.” But Carr is unflappable when it comes to defending his act. “To be punching down you need to be looking down. And it’s saying you can’t joke about those people, because they can’t take it … whereas, actually, some people with disabilities like really rough, dark stuff.” Before I have time to ask the Covid-era question “Are we doing handshakes?”, Jimmy Carr has thrust out his arm and grasped my hand. Then, suddenly, he lets go and screams: “Oh God, no! My hand’s covered in Covid!”From prioritising the future over the present to understanding the benefits of laughter, and from working on your disposition to finding your edge, Jimmy takes us through some key pillars to help us free ourselves from punishing patterns of behaviour and negative internal voices, so that we can pursue our dreams. He laughs: “Is this making me sound like an incel elder? I did have opportunities but I was bad at reading the signs and I would friend-zone people. A lot of girls I was very, very close to growing up, we had incredibly intimate relationships, but we didn’t have a physical relationship and it was lovely …” As for drugs, “I’ve tried everything once, but I’m not a drug person,” he says. “I’ve met people who are funnier after a couple of pints. But I’ve never once in my life met someone and gone, ‘Oh, he’s a bit quiet, but you’ve got to meet him after he’s had some cocaine.’” As for drugs, “I’ve tried everything once, but I’m not a drug person,” he says. “I’ve met people who are funnier after a couple of pints. But I’ve never once in my life met someone and gone: ‘Oh, he’s a bit quiet, but you’ve got to meet him after he’s had some cocaine.’” I think if you have a friend that’s tetraplegic you have to be quite chatty, because obviously the typing takes him so long,” he says, in a remark that feels like one of his jokes, but isn’t. “We’d do shots together sometimes too. His care team said tequila would be too much so he’d be on the Cointreau.”