James Acaster

James William Acaster (born 9 January 1985) is an English comedian.

James William Acaster was born in Kettering, Northamptonshire, England, on 9 January 1985.

His father was a science teacher.

His family attended a nondenominational Christian church whose Sunday sermons included humorous anecdotes, sketches recreating Bible stories, and rock music.

At a young age, Acaster performed a sketch with his father and enjoyed the laughs it received.

He attended Montagu Secondary School—since built over into Kettering Buccleuch Academy.

At high school, he participated in the drama club, turning each performance into comedy.

He dropped out of sixth form before sitting his A-level exams and sat a BTEC in Music Practice at Northampton College.

Aged 17 to 22, Acaster played the drums in various bands around his hometown, including The Wow!

Scenario, Three Line Whip and Pindrop.

While a drummer, Acaster had a number of jobs, including working in Wicksteed Park.

He was a dishwasher in two kitchens but did not learn to cook in either role; the first kitchen had a culture of bullying but he was also able to make friends.

A car crash at the age of 18 led him to fixate on the idea of death, so Acaster created a bucket list: items included skydiving and stand-up comedy.

He would complete them while working 12 hours per week in a kitchen.

After completing a stand-up course at the Kettering Volunteer Bureau, he began performing every few months, but maintained the vision of becoming a professional musician.

After Acaster suffered another band splitting up, he decided to take a break from music, believing it to be an industry where hard work did not guarantee success.

Without strong qualifications or a full-time job, Acaster pursued stand-up as a career.

As well as the stand-up specials Repertoire and Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999, he is known for co-hosting the food podcast Off Menu and the panel show Hypothetical.

Acaster makes use of fictional characters within his stand-up comedy, which is characterised by frequent callback jokes, offbeat observational comedy and overarching stories.

He has won four Chortle Awards, a Just for Laughs Award and International Comedy Festival Awards at Melbourne and New Zealand.

His following tour Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999 (2019) won a Melbourne International Comedy Festival Award.

He has been touring Hecklers Welcome since 2022.

After playing the drums for local bands in Kettering, Acaster began pursuing stand-up comedy as a career in 2008.

He started performing on open mics in 2008.

He moved to Wood Green, North London, and supported himself financially by working as a teaching assistant in a South London secondary school for autistic students for nine months.

For the 2009 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Acaster performed with Nick Helm and Josh Widdicombe in a free fringe show, garnering poor attendance and a single review—ThreeWeeks rated it one star and called it "depressing".

He was a support act for Josie Long in 2010.

Acaster drew acclaim for his shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where he was nominated for Best Comedy Show a record-breaking five times.

For Josie Long's 2010 tour, the support acts were Acaster and The Pictish Trail.

In 2011, Acaster toured as Milton Jones' support act.

Acaster garnered acclaim through annual Edinburgh Festival Fringe shows, receiving five consecutive nominations for the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Comedy Show from 2012 to 2016, a record.

Most of the Welsh leg of the tour was cancelled following a car accident with Acaster at the wheel, which served as the inspiration for The Pictish Trail's single "Dead Connection" (2016).

In 2017, he toured three of his Fringe performances as The Trelogy while writing a fourth to accompany the set; this led to the four-part Netflix special Repertoire (2018).

Acaster's first book, Classic Scrapes (2017), was developed from a recurring segment on Widdicombe's XFM radio show in which he shared anecdotes of personal mishaps.

Acaster appeared as a guest on British television panel show Taskmaster (2018) and co-hosted Hypothetical (2019–2022) with Josh Widdicombe.

He also hosts the food podcast Off Menu (2018–) with the comedian Ed Gamble.

His second book, Perfect Sound Whatever (2019), is about his mental health issues in 2017 that led to him collecting a large number of albums released in 2016.

His third book, Guide to Quitting Social Media (2022), is a parody of the self-help genre.

All three books have been Sunday Times bestsellers.

The music collective Temps was formed by Acaster and released its debut album, Party Gator Purgatory, in May 2023.