Comic also tells how stand-up saved his marriage

John Bishop says he will never forgive the system that jailed his father for a year.

When the comedian was six his father Ernie was sent to prison after getting into a fight defending his mum.

He told journalist Elizabeth Day on her How To Fail podcast,  ‘Basically there'd been an altercation at some point, My mum was getting chips at a chippy and my dad was in the car and these two fellas started having a go with her and shoved her around, and that was it.’

The comic went on to explain how the family felt ‘stitched up’ because they couldn't afford a good defence lawyer. 

He said ‘one of the stupid ideas’ they came up with was to use the fact his dad was a twin and suggest the prosecution couldn’t say  which one of the twins did it.

‘You clearly didn't have a good defence if somebody was suggesting that,’ he said. 

Bishop also recalled the way the family were made to feel when they visited his dad in prison, saying: ‘I'll never forget just the way you were looked at, the way the guards looked at you. 

‘Oh, it was horrible. Each door you went through was locked behind you as the families all went through, and it just felt like you were cattle. It felt like you were judged, and nobody's interested in the truth or the reality. You were just one of them. All of that got reconfirmed by that one moment.

Asked if he had forgiven the system that did that to his father, Bishop replied simply:  ‘No, never will.’

The comedian also told how he and his wife got back together after he started stand-up.

The story of him wandering in to the open mic night at Manchester’s Frog & Bucket comedy club and giving it a go during the divorce process is the basis for the forthcoming Bradley Cooper and Will Arnott film  Is This Thing On?

And Bishop told Day how his new passion subsequently rekindled their relationship.

‘What happened after being apart for almost two years - about 20 months - she came to a comedy club not knowing I did stand-up comedy. I didn't tell anyone I did stand-up, I didn't tell any of my mates. 

‘She's in this comedy club with people who don't know me, in this new job and someone's birthday I think it was and her ex-husband walks on the stage.

’At the time I used to tell this terrible joke about saying, "I'm really sad at the moment I split up my wife… it's not that bad, we're not divorced or anything, I've just killed her but I've kept her head in the fridge."

‘Terrible joke and not something I would say now and certainly not something I would say after that night because I looked to the left and the head that was meant to be in the fridge was in the audience. 

‘I tell you where we were at. We were at the decree nice stage of the divorce. We were just haggling over money and kids and stuff like that. 

‘I remember seeing the head thinking, "Oh my God, that joke's going to cost me another 20 grand." 

‘Then she came over at the end and she was laughing and I'll never forget the line she said. She just said, "It was just great to see you doing that. She said, you've got that bounce in your step, that glint in your eyes". She said, "You’re like the man I met, what happened to you?" I said, "I married you." 

‘Then she said, "Well, can we do something?" Then we ended up going to counselling because she wouldn't sign the papers and we couldn't finalise the deal. 

‘I remember sitting in the room and she was talking for 20 minutes and I was talking for 20 minutes, and it was going a little bit backwards and forward, and this counsellor went, "What are you two doing here? Why don’t you just go for the coffee? I can see what you probably can't see. Just go and have a coffee." And then that was it.’

He joked that the secret to the success of their relationship was ‘go on tour for six months of a year,’ before adding more sincerely: ‘Being connected with somebody in the same way that we are means  no one can make me feel like she does and so she can make me feel shit as well. 

‘If Melanie's annoyed with me, it ruins me day. I couldn't give a shit what anyone else thinks.  But she has a place in my psyche that no one else does.

‘I give my jokes to strangers, but I give my tears to her because when I'm down and I'm done, no one else sees it.’

Bishop also spoke of his motto for comedy that ‘you are always only four words away from success or failure’.

He explained: ‘The thing with stand-up is that it's all about the reveal. You set the joke up and then you are four words away and then the punchline is said and in English, the punchline is invariably the last word that's said. So the last word of that sentence is you stop and people laugh. 

‘I was speaking to someone about it the other day and I said, the difficulty is if they don't laugh, you can't go back and do it again. I said, it's like being a stripper. You go boom, you get your boobs out and if nobody's impressed you, you don't go, "Oh that was an accident" and then put them back in and get them out again. 

‘The joke is the last word and as you're saying it as a comedian, you’re only ever building up to that last word. Then if they don't laugh, you've got to pick them up again and if they do laugh, you ride on it so you're only ever four words away from judgment, I think.’

• How To Fail with Elizabeth Day is available on all podcast platforms.

Published: 14 May 2025