Jimmy Carr Opens Up On Anxiety, Grief & Needing To Be Loved

This is the podcast of Jake Humphrey (right of your screen) and Prof. Damian Hughes (centre).

Posted on October 25^th 2026 there was a mention of Jimmy “just back from Canada”. Which would put the recording date somewhere between September 28^th and October 4^th (when he was filming Cats Countdown).

It’s also on Apple podcasts, if you prefer, here.

For quotes and books, mentioned below, see Booklist – here.

Referenced:

• Embrace the chaos – Nietzsche
• Before and Laughter – here
• Sui generis
• Discipline, motivation, obsession
• Mark Fisher – Capitalist ontology
• Marcus Aurelius – Stoic teachings
• Viktor Frankl
• The good is the enemy of the best – Voltaire
• René Girard – Mimetic Desires
• Kaizen
• Daniel Kahneman – Thinking, Fast and Slow
• Jack Hyles – success is on the same road as failure
• You can’t have an easy life and a great character
• Aldous Huxley – Brave New World
• Stephen Jenkinson – Griefwalker (see Watchlist – here)
• Ram Das – We’re all just walking each other home
• Terence McKenna – rockets and pyramids
• Miguel de Cervantes – The road is better than the Inn
• Linsey McGoey – The Unknowers: How Strategic Ignorance Rules The World
• D.A.D. – parenthood – Direct, Advise, Discuss
• Eckhart Tolle
• Gautama Buddha – Equanimity with impermanence

He also mentions being involved tangentially with Drama Matters (here).

Award-winning comedian, writer, and television host Jimmy Carr has made millions of people laugh by saying the things most of us wouldn’t dare say out loud. But behind the jokes is a mind constantly wrestling with confidence, anxiety, control and the pressure to keep performing.

He joins Jake and Damian for an unusually revealing conversation about what it actually takes to build confidence, why humour can give us perspective when life gets difficult, and how quickly our minds can spiral when we feel out of control.

Jimmy gets brutally honest about his own struggles with anxiety, why “self-confidence without competence is delusion”, and the simple things he’s learned to do when his mind starts working against him.

From the stage to the darkest moments in his own head, Jimmy offers a different perspective on what it means to live with uncertainty, handle discomfort and keep moving forward, without taking yourself, or your thoughts, too seriously.

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