Top comedy writer reveals he's to undergo chemo

Graham Linehan, the writer of Father Ted, the IT Crowd and Motherland has revealed that he has testicular cancer.

In a series of tweets today, he told his 700,000 followers that he has had one of his testicles removed.

He wrote: ‘I got a bit of bad news recently. A little touch of the old cancer. Luckily, ball cancer is one of the best ones to have (sorry, ladies!) and they got rid of it all pretty quickly, along with a ball. Bye, ball! I'll never forget the good times!

‘Next up is a course of chemo to make sure it doesn't come back. Not looking forward to that, obviously, but it's Better than dying.’

He said he hopes the treatment wouldn’t stop him from working on Pope Ted, the musical stage version of Father Ted he is working on with the sitcom’s co-creator Arthur Mathews and Neil Hannon, who wrote its theme tune.

‘Pope Ted is coming along nicely., he wrote. ‘It’s really making us laugh. I’m not sure whether I’ll have to stop working on it or what, but the script (sorry, ‘book’) is so close to being done that I can walk away from it for a while and we’re still in good shape.

‘So that’s the story. I’m hoping I’ll just continue to be the happy-go-lucky, beloved twitter personality you all know, but if there are moments of quiet from me, don’t worry, I’m just dealing with it.’

After receiving a barrage of support from his fans, he added: ‘Ugh, God, people are so nice. You forget sometimes. Thanks, everyone'

Published: 27 Jun 2018