It begins on Christmas Day, 1996: “It’s been a lovely day … I realised how much I love my family.” It ends three years later: “I’m lying on the floor in floods of tears and all I want to do is die.” Say what you like about adolescence but it is nothing if not an emotional tumult. Two years that, if not quite the hormonal rollercoaster the book itself records, have been quite the ride. The project is borne of a crossroads moment in the Lancashire man’s midlife, after he experienced bereavement, serious illness among family and friends, and the breakdown of his marriage to fellow comic Lucy Beaumont.
The last was an inevitably very public ending, splayed across the tabloids, to a relationship which itself played out in public, courtesy of the couple’s acclaimed mockumentary about their domestic arrangements, Meet the Richardsons. So I was in quite a reflective period anyway.” But in Richardson’s case, there was a specific focus for that reflection. An inveterate hoarder, the 44-year-old had cupboards full of detritus (ticket stubs, photos, certificates, VHS videos, letters and emails – and of course, his teenage diaries) salvaged from the early years of his life.
That’s the journey of the book really. It’s in the present tense because it documents me doing the reflecting and the clearing out. But it’s about those first 20 years and how much of them you carry over.” While writing, the comic deep-dived into teenage memoirs from Rae Earl’s My Fat, Mad Teenage Diary, via the works of Nobel prize winner Annie Ernaux (thanked by Richardson in the acknowledgements), to the recent Coming of Age: How Adolescence Shapes Us by psychologist Lucy Foulkes.
The resulting book may not be the one you’d expect from the neurotic standup once branded “the nation’s favourite worrier”, or from the team captain on Channel 4’s 8 Out of 10 Cats, or even from the presenter of popular documentaries about OCD. This is not a book to nestle snugly in the humour section of Waterstones, nor one that jauntily glosses the anxieties of adolescence. Its structure – diary extracts followed by grownup Jon reflecting ruthlessly thereupon – offers Richardson endless opportunities for entertaining self-abasement.
And there is nostalgic delight to be had in the period detail: “Blockbuster video, Tupperware parties and Ann Summers.” And there is droll dramatic irony too, as per Richardson’s favourite entry, aged 14, apropos of nothing: “I’ve decided that although I’ll probably end up being a teacher, I’d love to be a comedian.” He says now: “But in terms of the emotions, I couldn’t sugarcoat what those years were. Very few people become comedians because they’re well-adjusted and just want to spread joy in the world. Going back to the 60s and 70s, and those people who now have BBC Four documentaries made about them, people tend to come to comedy through having unscratched itches, or to make amends for some shortcoming in themselves.
And I’m no different.” In the book, we follow Richardson’s teenage self from 14 to 17. I’m in my room playing Mario Kart most of the time.” At first, teenage Jon comes across as kind, bright, tentatively happy. But as time passes, his diary increasingly records a sense of isolation, frustration and low self-worth.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
