Book review by Jay Richardson

With John Robins currently on hiatus from stand-up, this heartbreaking memoir of his relationship with drinking goes a long way towards bringing readers up to date with where his head is right now,  from a personal and professional perspective. Sober but vigilant.

On stage, in his radio work and podcasting, Robins has developed a rare candour and capacity to share his demons – to connect by conveying his emotional state in the moment. The most affecting anecdotal stand-up feels spontaneously delivered, memories seemingly being dredged up there and then.

Thirst – which he summarises with typical bleak levity as an ‘alcobiography' –  repeats this trick, conveying his sobriety as an hour-by-hour struggle and a series of sensual, Proustian moments flooding over him, specific drinks transporting him to rose-tinted recollection and familiar wells of shame.

Footnotes betray his gentle skirmishes with his editor. Every so often he breaks off from writing to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. References to the redrafting process mark temporal distances from his last drink.

The book rather elides time, vulnerably foregrounding the frightened, tension-filled boy inside the isolated man, who once simply couldn't stop drinking, even when keeping it 'session', and the fear he will be unable to do so again. Even if nowadays he favours being tucked up alone in bed with peppermint tea and a crossword by early evening.

It has parallels with Katy Wix's memoir Delicacy, which presented her traumatic life through her relationship with a number of cakes. But Robins also draws from his Bag Of Death, an unwieldy, literal sack of photographs and memorabilia, unhealthy, nostalgic hoarding that fills in some of the blanks from his multiple Blackout and the knowingly unreliable narration of his hazier episodes. Writing the book appears to have been a real discovery process, confronting the fictions that alcohol told him about himself.

Thirst is also a companion piece of sorts to Lou Sanders' 2023 memoir What's That Lady Doing?, for which he offered guidance before publication. Both comics had difficult relationships with their late stepfathers, periods of stalling in their career and of eventually arriving at a reckoning with their addiction and shame.

It is Sanders who sits the suicidally-inclined Robins down in one of his many rock-bottom moments to plainly tell him that he is an alcoholic. And it is she, of all the friends that he thanks and apologises to, that seems closest to a kindred spirit.

In contrast to her account, however, Robins' is exhaustive in his self-analysis. Chapters are frequently gruelling and there are lengthy passages without humour. Admirably free of self-pity, he perhaps doesn't give himself enough credit for getting into Oxford University at the second attempt. Or coping with a religious father who left his family when he was young to live in Canada – although the comic has done the therapy and now rationalised much of his angst-ridden adolescence.

As he relates his near-death experiences, the self-harm and drink-driving, imbibing petrol and aftershave at an early age, he throws in a few asterisked breaks to signal lighter passages with a few jokes. That's a joke in itself, of course, very much at his expense, painfully self-aware. But not so jarring a device that it doesn't feel and authentic account of his day-to-day coping strategies.

An avowed champion for the consolations of creating art at your lowest ebb, he peppers the book with affecting passages from heroes such as Philip Larkin and Bonnie Prince Billy, as well as wide-ranging wisdom from experts on addiction, self-worth and spirituality, laying out his psychological bibliography for coping with failed relationships and wryly reflecting on the poignancy of a phrase like 'ex-fiancee'.

Ian Cognito appears as a cautionary tale of someone who effectively drank himself to death, inspiring and terrifying Robins with his mischief and madness. Robins' entry into stand-up coincided with one of his regular, self-deluding abstinences from booze. But his two vocations became a poisonous cocktail soon enough.

You inwardly cheer when he meets his great platonic loves, a taped copy of On The Hour handed him by an empathetic teacher; Sanders; his radio co-host Elis James and his best friend; the 'lovely' musician Robin Allender. Generally, they are steadying forces. But also, to an extent, just fellow travellers on the extended pub crawl of his life, convivially with him but never fully in his lonely, personal hell.

Persuasively dismissive of fame – and social media clout – and the minor celebrity he has, he fails to Follow through on a teased account of being fired from Deal Or No Deal for being intoxicated. There's some brief triumphalism in smashing Dom Joly on House Of Games, despite being in the depths of a terrible hangover. He is brief in his references to former partner Sara Pascoe and his relatively well-known, unnamed ex-fiancee, respecting their privacy. However, they're part of an irresistible pattern that consistently, cruelly robs him of shared happiness.

The likes of Russell Howard, Daniel Kitson, Tom Rosenthal and Jon Richardson make cameos, the latter blamelessly for a sumptuous, wine-infused dish of lamb he made that Robins identifies as one of the 12 standout drinks contributing to his downfall.

But while he retains decidedly mixed feelings about stand-up – a dopamine and adrenaline rollercoaster akin to drinking – Robins is generous towards his peers and never less than thoughtful and insightful about the comedy industry.  Indeed, when he quotes one of Kitson's affectionate nicknames for Stewart Lee, it makes you yearn for a bit more grit chucked at Other rather than himself.

He writes elegantly, beautifully even, of the majesty of a great pub. And the social lubrication of drinking, while being clear-sighted enough to temper any elation with caveats about the negative emotions and the illusions that still hold sway over him at his romantic core and a deeper, chemical level.

Like many, I suspect, who've seen most of his shows, consumed plenty of his audio content and now read this unsparing account, parasocially I feel great sadness and sympathy for Robins. 

But also tremendous respect that he's been so eloquent and grimly, sometimes daftly funny, about his issues while doggedly exploring them, and despite the debilitating pain and the risk of relapse.

• Thirst: Twelve Drinks That Changed My Life by John Robins  is published by Viking and is available from Amazon priced £15.29 in hardback – or from uk.bookshop.org, below, which supports independent bookstores.  

• Listen to Robins read the introduction chapter here.

Published: 7 May 2026