Undoctored

Adam Kay was clever, shy, gay and confused when he was eased into Med School by his GP father and sundry other doctory relatives. A kindly mentor suggested that, as well as learning the name of every nodule and muscle-attachment on his 'half-skeleton', he might contribute to the Christmas revue. And it was so, and he was good at that and happier there than in other aspects of his medical training. I wrote about how he jacked in his scrubs after a harrowing death under his hands.

That first book This is going to hurt, was a [surprise?] run-away best-seller which allowed him and his partner to move out of a shit-hole into a nicer place to live. A few years later, because he hadn't practiced medicine, he lost his certificate to do so. He published a second book of memoirs Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas, at least partly because that was going to support his agent, his publisher and WH Smith. These books are funny and intermittently harrowing, which is a genre. 

Now there's a 3rd volume Undoctored, also on Borrowbox, which is harrowing and intermittently funny. While the previous books were not without introspection and self-analysis, this one is much more personal / confessional and frankly uncomfortable reading. There is a belief that you can achieve psychological relief from your mental roilings by articulating the memories with a trusted person: a catholic confessor, maybe; or a psychotherapist / analyst. Adam Kay chooses to share a lot of intimate personal details with thousands of random readers rather than one discrete qualified person. Given that he was, for several months, stalked by an obsessive admirer he had encountered on Twitter; his sharing in Undoctored borders on pathological. But what do I know? I'm altogether too buttoned up.

Whatevs! I regret getting far too much distinctly unfunny information from & about this comedian.