Comic's mortifying teenage moment

Russell Howard has revealed that a burglar once caught him enjoying some ‘mucky business'.

The comic was 13 when the incident happened – ‘pre-internet, raging hormones’ – he told Jack Whitehall on his Safe Space podcast.

‘ I had a video that I think my mate Craig had given me of erotica, and everyone was out,’ Howard recalled. And I thought, I've got a good half an hour where I can enjoy some erotica.

‘So, I scampered downstairs, got me filthy tape, put it in and started the mucky business.

‘And this is genuinely true, there was a knock at the window and this guy looked at me and kind of pointed at me. And me and my junk both froze and then he ran off, and he was very smiley.’

‘It was the next day that I realised our neighbours had been broken into. And I can only assume that he was the thief.

‘Everyone was saying, "You were there, did you see anything?" I was like, "No, I did not. I didn't see a thing. There was nothing I saw."’

Instead he told them he was too engrossed in his geography homework to have seen anything.

Published: 5 Dec 2022