The standup on his new book about stuck-up children, earnest hecklers and why he gets annoyed about being called a ‘TikTok comedian’

How did you get into comedy?
I’d always secretly wanted to be a comedian. When my university held a talent show and needed someone to host it, I volunteered and booked myself into an open mic night called Comedy Virgins to get some practice, but bombed. I essentially didn’t tell any jokes, just a long-winded, vaguely amusing story. I got so fascinated about why it hadn’t gone well that I spent a week with a pen and paper, watching standup specials and dissecting what the comedians were doing, line by line. Then I went back to the open mic night and won a little plastic trophy.

Who did you admire when you were starting out?
I was super into Alan Carr when I was a teenager. I would watch his DVDs over and over again. When I moved to London, there was a kind of indie alternative comedy club/company called The Invisible Dot, that had people like Mae Martin, Tim Key, the sketch group Daphne (Phil Wang, Jason Forbes and George Fouracres) and I just got obsessed with it. I couldn’t imagine anything more cool or glamorous.