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

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One infamous joke ran: “Say what you like about those servicemen amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan, but we’re going to have a f**king good Paralympic team in 2012. Some believe that Carr has crossed a line, as he's picked on a community that is too often marginalised. It may not have been for me, but if the book helps anyone else reach the same level of contentment as Carr seems to have, maybe he’s on to something. Unusually for a celebrity promoting their memoir, Carr turns up for our interview without a PR officer in sight. When I ask how it felt to be roasted by Lock over the K2 tax scandal (“We all like to put a bit of money away for a rainy day, but I think you’re more prepared than Noah,” joked Lock on the show that followed the revelations), Carr’s voice breaks completely.

As we talk about her, Carr turns the tables and asks me a question: do I interview a lot of comedians? If you are in the North America, look out for US/Canadian flag icons on popular product listings for direct links. He seems a little dejected when I tell him I was more interested in the memoir sections of the book.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.

Carr continues an hour-long routine that riffs on, amongst other controversial topics, paedophiles, ugly women, rape, disability and veganism. As we walk through his PR’s art-filled offices he gives me a breathless guided tour full of trivia – “I think that’s the actual drum from the sleeve of Sgt Pepper” – and more gags. Currently appearing as one of the judges on the BBC One talent show I Can See Your Voice, Carr is set to resume his stand-up tour, Terribly Funny, at the Palace Theatre in London on June 15. The only thing about being sober around comedians is that, around 2am, you might as well f**k off home.But, he adds: "The lessons I learned from comedy made my life better - listening and communication, the rhythm of speech, and pattern recognition which is all joke writing is. He describes his first descent into the latter vividly: “Like vertigo … the sensation of falling within a black void. Already anticipating his next tour, he has challenged himself to modify his short-form, gag-heavy form of stand-up. Sproston accepts the headlines made around Carr's comments have raised awareness about the murders of Roma and Sinti people in World War Two but adds: "I don't think that was his intention. Carr has regularly been in trouble for his gags, from both the left for “punching down” – often towards minorities such as travellers, disabled people, fat people, gay people, victims of sexual violence – and the right.

In the era of cancel culture, he remains one of the UK's most popular stand-ups - arguably because of his brand of humour rather than in spite of it. Initially I thought he might be spoofing the genre, but no: it’s an utterly sincere guide for people to achieve bigger things in life, complete with notes on healthy eating, travel tips and – somewhat hilariously given the huge scandal around his tax avoidance in 2012 – managing finances. As your timing improves, not only do your laughs become louder in clubs, but you notice at a dinner party that you're never talking over anyone. 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.I was publicly shamed for tax avoidance and it was very clear what I had to do: say sorry and pay it back. He earned a Perrier Award nomination in 2002 for his Edinburgh show Jimmy Carr's Bare Faced Ambition and went on to become Channel 4's face of comedy, fronting various shows, including 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, Distraction, Your Face Or Mine? He seems to have witnessed a different pandemic from me, in which well-signposted icebergs were frequently ploughed into and alternative ideas were plentiful yet often ignored or mocked.