As Jimmy Carr’s Am I The A**hole? starts on Comedy Central next week, the comedian talks morality, honesty and whether he's judgmental...

How would you describe the series?

Am I The Asshole? is a great subreddit – which is a user board on Reddit – where contributors ask other users if they’re the asshole because of something they’ve done or because of an opinion they hold.

Society, and our trust in society, is predicated on us all playing by the same rules, but we live in a brave new world. There’s been so much change within our culture and to the rules of etiquette, so this show is trying to work out what the rules are in our modern world.

A lot of our culture has unwritten rules about how we behave, and act and comedians are the ones who say, ‘Hang on - why do we do this thing that way? That doesn’t make any sense!’

The people who are asking if they’re the asshole are sometimes offering the heterodox opinion to how something is done - they’re pushing back against the way something is done just because it’s always been done that way. 

The contributors were great, as were the studio audience, because everyone has a question where they might be the asshole.

The people on the show are wondering: ‘Have I messed up here? Have I been selfish in this situation? Or, was I absolutely right?’ You can’t see how the situation appears when you’re in the eye of the storm, so people are asking GK Barry, Jamali Maddix, and me for confirmation.

The three of us couldn’t be more different and what’s been amazing is how we, and everyone in the audience, have agreed a contributor is either 100 per cent in the right or 100 per cent  in the wrong. We’re not in the eye of the storm, so everyone has a bit of a Spidey sense about the answer.

What do Jamali and GK bring to the show?

Jamali and I have been on quite a few shows together and he's such a lovely bloke.

He’s so funny, quick, and he doesn’t have a filter at all - he’s honest in a way that you have to accept him. Jamali is surprisingly empathetic, even if he delivers empathy in a very aggressive tone.

I, like the rest of the nation, found GK so charming and authentic on I’m A Celebrity and on her great podcast, and she’s a comic in all but name.

GK said she was nervous about working with you, because you’re a hero of hers - were you aware of either her nerves or her admiration?

She certainly didn’t show any nerves! That’s very nice to hear, because I forget that I’ve been on TV for 25 years and so people have seen me on television since they were a kid. I never think of myself as being famous.

How much did you enjoy the studio audience being active participants?

TV, for me, is a side hustle; my job is as a stand-up. Every one of my stand-up shows includes about 20 minutes of chatting with the audience, so audience work is my bread and butter.

I love working on a show where you have the great British public - or, in some cases, not so great British public - telling us stories where there are real stakes and they’re asking a genuine question about whether or not they’re an asshole. 

I don’t quite know why Comedy Central asked me to judge assholes; I guess they figure game recognises game.

Are you a judgmental person?

I'm not that judgmental - I can tell you whether you're being an asshole or not. I'm pretty forgiving immediately afterwards, because I know I've done worse.

We dig a little deeper into the questions and hear the full story. The headline to a story can sound really bad but when you dig deeper, you discover it might not be as bad as it first sounds.

Did this series offer a great opportunity to deliver some real roasts?

I don’t think I was too mean. What’s interesting is the importance of being able to take a joke in British culture - it doesn’t matter what you say to people as long as it’s funny. The worst thing you could say about a British person is they can’t take a joke.

How honest are the contributors about themselves and their situation?

The level of honesty just blew my mind. There was a charming woman who asked - this was incredible - if she was an asshole because when she was a kid she was envious of her brother who had more attention than her, as he was in a wheelchair.

She was a kid, so it’s absolutely forgivable, but I did think, ‘Wow!’ There’s a great level of honesty in admitting her feelings and we can all claim we’d never act that way, but we all have our own stories.

The contributors on the subreddit are anonymous, so how brave are the contributors to the TV show put their faces to their questions?

When people own what they’ve done, people are surprisingly all right with them. There’ a fear of being judged, but people respect honesty.

We had a great guy in one episode who asked if he was the asshole because he ghosted his fiancé. He didn’t bother breaking up with her; he was just done and disappeared off the face of the Earth. Unbelievable! 

Half the audience were shocked and appalled, while the other half agreed that break-ups are hard and he wasn’t wrong for bouncing.

We had quite a few break-up stories where the contributors couldn’t face up to the awkwardness of telling their partner the truth, so they made up a bullshit story.

Some of the contributors were giving themselves a hard time because the situation hinged on a preference. One woman went out on a date with a guy who had lied about his height on an app - he’s in the wrong, but is she an asshole for having a height preference?

Is exploring those grey areas a big part of the show?

The heart wants what the heart wants, so I believe it’s fine to have preferences.

Apparently height is the most swiped left stat by women on Tinder, so a single guy has to lie about their height to game the system or else they’re not in the game.

When you consider height is a proxy for safety, and men seek out attractive women because prettiness is a proxy for healthiness, you realise there are evolutionary reasons behind these choices. We can’t help who we are and we’re trying to rationalise the behaviour of our Neolithic minds.

So this series is actually a serious examination of anthropological impulses?

That makes it sound like it doesn’t have as many dick jokes as it does. This is really fun to watch with your other half, because you can imagine couples falling out over who’s in the right.

Were there any confessions that shocked or have stayed with you?

There was a theme of people becoming caught in a lie; they tell a little white lie without realising they were going to have to back up that lie. At what stage do you pull the plug on the lie?

There was one guy who moved into his new home and asked his noisy neighbours to keep their noise down because his baby was trying to sleep, but he didn’t have a baby.

He thought he would never see these neighbours again, when instead he was bumping into them every day. He made up a fake life for his baby until, eventually, he didn’t know how to escape his lie.

The audience were so upset about a baby which never existed. I don’t know why people found that so upsetting when it’s such a fun story.

How far can you take a story like that?

You’re in such a world of pain, you’d say to him, ‘Mate - move house. Move to another country. Pack up and leave.’ When people disappear I think they must have been caught in one of these lies and decided to learn Spanish and move to South America.

Is this show a proponent for honesty, then?

Sometimes the issue isn’t what’s happened, it’s the cover-up, like you see in politics.

We had quite a few stories involving theft - if you asked anyone if it’s wrong to steal, people would say, ‘Yes, it's wrong to steal.’ But, when you dig into the weeds, you discover exceptions for everything.

One contributor stole food out of the fridge at work, but he had a moral code where he’d only take something if it had been there for more than two days and clearly wasn’t going to be eaten. He was like an office-fridge Womble or a bin-raiding Greta Thunberg.

Was there a particular genre of story you were most looking forward to hearing?

The relatable stories about office life and relationships were both really fun, as everyone’s worked in an office where someone has annoyed them and everyone’s had a break-up.

 Anywhere we have to share spaces, like on public transport, there are  going to be clashes between different people who have different rules.

There are unwritten rules in Britain, like how to queue, and it’s forgivable if a visitor breaks them. 

Sometimes you visit someone else’s culture and you don’t know the rules. The first time I visited Japan I was drinking a coffee on the subway, and I asked our translator if everyone was staring at us because Westerners were a rarity.

The translator told us, ‘No, it’s because you’re drinking a coffee on the train. People think you’re dog shit. People think you’re the worst.’ I asked why nobody had said anything and the answer was because I wasn’t from Japan, I wouldn’t understand, and it was pointless trying to make me do the right thing.

Has hearing these stories made you consider altering your behaviour?

The show has made me like people more, as people are so honest on the show about what they’ve done. Everything is forgivable and we’ve all had our moments - what’s nice is acknowledging and luxuriating in the human condition.

We’re all trying to navigate society and the rules are a moveable feast, so this makes you a bit more understanding and forgiving of everyone. 

The golden rule is "Treat other people as you would want to be treated", but then there’s the platinum rule - "Treat yourself as you treat other people." We all fuck up once in a while.

If you were a contributor on the show, what's the Am I The Asshole? story you would tell?

I've said terrible things to people's faces and there's a level of brutality in what I’ve said, but as long as it’s funny, I think it’s forgivable.

I’m like Evel Knievel, the 1970s stunt rider, because I’m not paid for the jump, I’m paid for the attempt. If I say something and it doesn’t raise a massive laugh, then without the funny you’re just being a brutal prick.

• Jimmy Carr’s Am I The A**hole? starts on Monday October 27 at 9pm on Comedy Central UK, and the next day on Paramount+.