'God is a tough audience'

Frank Skinner has written a book of prayers, to be published in April.

In the blurb for A Comedian’s Prayer Book, the comic jokes that ‘God is a tough audience’ for his invocations, ‘but at least you don’t have to explain the references.’

Publisher Hodder Faith say that Skinner ‘has tried to retain the bare candour of the rehearsal-room improvisation’ in the prayers, which address ‘his convictions, his questions, his fears, his doubts, his elations’.

‘Hell, Judgement, atheism, money, faith and the X-Men all feature,’ the blurb goes on. adding: ’It's a bit like reading the Bible, except you only get one side of the conversation, and all the jokes are left in.’

The comedian and Absolute Radio presenter, who became a practising Catholic in his twenties, first spoke about his plans for the book in September, when he said he wanted to celebrate his ‘unfashionable’ belief in a higher power.

In an interview with The Times, he said: ‘I am not someone who has bought into the sort of apology-style Christianity where you have to pretend that there’s no such thing as the virgin birth and there are no angels and the wine doesn’t turn into the blood.  The magic of it is what draws me in. I like the strangeness.

‘If you believe in God I think all bets are off. You can’t say, "I believe in God, but I don’t think someone can come back from the dead"… I am with the weirdo mystics myself.’

Last year  Skinner  published  How To Enjoy Poetry following on from two autobiographies, Frank Skinner by Frank Skinner  in 2001 and On The Road in 2008. A collection of Times newspaper columns, Dispatches From The Sofa, was also published in 2011.

• A Comedian’s Prayer Book will be released on April 1, and can be ordered from Waterstones.

Published: 18 Feb 2021