This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.

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Did you hear the one about the stand-up comedian who’s actually a complete introvert? Well go ahead and laugh, says Rhys James, Live at the Apollo luminary and perennial panellist on BBC2’s Mock the Week. He describes his first book, out this week, as “a dread memoir” – then adds, hurriedly, “but funny”.

“Sorry, it’s hard to explain your own book, because it’s like describing yourself on a dating app: ‘Aren’t I amazing?!’” he says. “But it’s not about the dark, horrible, scary kind of dread: it’s about the dread of small, social things, like having to go for a couples dinner, or go down the pub, or make a speech – and this massive underlying fear of things going wrong or being embarrassing.”

In fact, You’ll Like It When You Get There is perhaps best summed up by its revelation that the sentence James feared most as a child was “Come downstairs and say hello”. And that when plans are cancelled, he still “celebrates with an Andy Murray fist pump”. And a howl-out-loud anecdote about pretending to be French to avoid conversation (in fact, three anecdotes about pretending to be French).

So far, so relatable – but why then become a comic? “Introverts aren’t just those skulk-in-the-corner guys; it’s more complicated than that. If you go to the pub with me, I in no way seem like an introvert, because I’ll be dominating conversation – I won’t shut up. But that’s how introversion manifests for me: I’m ‘confident-presenting’. I’m desperately trying for there not to be a silence, because my introverted brain can’t hack it.

"My ‘villain origin story’ is when I was 14 and had my trousers and pants pulled down in front of classmates, and I vowed to get laughs on my own terms for ever more – and actually stand-up comedy is a great way of controlling the situation. It suits an introvert because you’re basically saying, ‘All face me and I’ll speak!’ If someone shouts out, you basically go, ‘Shut up!’ And that’s what being an introvert is all about for me: ‘Can everyone just shut up a second? Listen to me, so I don’t have to try and jostle my way into the conversation.’”

Rhys James, Maisie Adam and Robin Morgan sitting behind a big blue desk on TV panel show Mock the Week
Rhys James, Maisie Adam and Robin Morgan on Mock the Week. UKTV

Writing a book must be an introvert’s dream, then, you’d think – but oh no. “Doing stand-up gives you constant feedback,” says James. “If I have an idea for a sentence, I go and say it, and I find out that night if it’s worth ever saying again. When you write a book, you have to really believe in what you’re saying. It’s like, ‘Will “future me” rate this when I read it back at a later date?’”

And read it back he did: James also narrates the audio version of the book (released this week) – which turned out lucky for listeners and readers alike. “Josh Widdicombe advised me to read it aloud while writing it, because otherwise you will come to do the audiobook and think, ‘This isn’t how I speak’ and want to rewrite it all. But by reading it out loud, I had already realised which bits needed more jokes.”

In fact there are laughs pretty much every sentence or two, but James also explains that he drew on very different kinds of material for the memoir than he would for a show. “In the book there are a lot of embarrassing anecdotes from my life that wouldn’t work in my act. My stand-up style is a bit cockier, and if I told these humiliating stories I’d become ‘low-status’ and it wouldn’t make any sense.

“For instance, in the book there’s a story about me in the gym at the end of a workout on that machine where your legs are splayed and you move them in and out with your thigh muscles. I’m looking at my phone with my headphones on, then a hand touches me on the shoulder and it’s a personal trainer saying, ‘This man is going to demonstrate for us.’ And when I looked, there were 20 schoolchildren all waiting for me to do a demo of the most sexually charged machine, in shorts, completely knackered.

"Obviously I could have said no, but I’m a stand-up comedian – I seek approval! – so I do it through the pain, and the trainer says, ‘Give this guy a round of applause!’ And no one claps.

“I’ve had a few corporate gigs go the same way actually,” he adds, and there’s a similar sigh in his voice when he talks about the American version of Mock the Week that Amazon Prime were going to make with him and Trevor Noah.

“I think that’s not happening any more. When the [US screenwriters’] strikes hit, a former UK panel show was somehow one of the easiest projects to cut.” It’s a shame, he concedes, because “satire is always necessary, especially now when people get very het up and find it harder to laugh at things they don’t agree with”.

Fortunately, he’ll be fine without Amazon’s big bucks. “Actually,” says our introvert, tongue in audibly close proximity to cheek, “I’m an author now, don’t you know?”

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