John Robins Returns
The Comedian's Comedian Podcast
Stuart Goldsmith
4.8 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 7 May 2026
⏱️ 92 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
313 episodes later… the critically acclaimed comedian, award-winning broadcaster and Taskmaster champion, John Robins returns to the pod!
John first spoke on stage with an incredible level of honesty and introspection about his alcoholism with Howl (which you can listen to on his here). This week he’s continuing to share that story with the release of his memoir, Thirst: the story of his life through the lens of alcohol, the drinks that made him, and those that broke him.
In this episode we discuss:
- how Taskmaster was the closest he’s got to being himself on TV
- why 12-step recovery feels like a form of stand-up
- the process of opening yourself up in the form a book
- how comedy careers can distort what you see as success
- the problem with “ego” in comedy and how sobriety shifts it
- learning to sit with yourself instead of escaping
- and if John plans to return to stand-up...
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- how much of stress is actually chosen
- why alcohol never actually solves what it claims to
- and the impact of recording the audiobook
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Catch Up with John: John Robins' Thirst is out now on in all good book stores and is also available as an Audiobook. Find all the info at johnrobins.com. You can keep-up-date with John on Instagram, @nomadic_revery.
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PLUS you’ll get access to the full back catalogue of extras you can find nowhere else!
Everything I'm up to: Come and see me LIVE, find out all the info and more at stuartgoldsmith.com/comedy. Discover my comedy about the climate crisis, for everyone from activists to CEOs, at stuartgoldsmith.com/climate.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is episode 5909 of the Comedians, Comedian podcast. |
| 0:21.8 | And in this episode, we are welcoming back John Robbins to the show. |
| 0:26.0 | The critically acclaimed comedian, taskmaster champion, an award-winning broadcaster. |
| 0:32.1 | Robbins returns to the pod, 313 episodes after his previous appearance. |
| 0:41.2 | God, this is, this is like a lot. man, this is, this is a good one. This is a really, really good one. John talks with incredible honesty and |
| 0:48.5 | introspection about his alcoholism in a show called Howl, which you can listen to on his |
| 0:53.8 | band camp, the link is in the show notes. |
| 0:56.5 | And this week, he is continuing to share that story with the release of his memoir, Thirst, |
| 1:02.5 | the story of his life. I can't remember exactly what there's a subtitle, which I don't remember. |
| 1:06.6 | The book's got, the copy I've got, it's called Thirst. It's the story of his life through |
| 1:10.8 | the lens of his life through the |
| 1:11.2 | lens of alcohol, through the drinks that made him and the drinks that broke him. I may be paraphrasing |
| 1:16.5 | the actual thing. The book is effectively called First. It is fantastic and it is so easy to |
| 1:24.9 | interview someone when you are genuinely completely blown away by a thing they've |
| 1:29.2 | made. This is, with all due respect to John's very impressive, excellent stand-up, this is, I think, |
| 1:37.8 | the most, and his many, his multiple podcasts, all of which are excellent, this is the most |
| 1:42.6 | significant thing he's made. You've got to read |
| 1:45.0 | this book. It's brilliant. In the first half of the episode, we are going to talk about when your |
| 1:50.3 | audience knows more about you than your friends do. We'll talk about why 12-step recovery can |
| 1:55.7 | feel like a form of stand-up. We'll talk about ego in comedy and how sobriety can shift that problem. We'll talk about |
| 2:03.0 | progress and not perfection. And we will find out how Taskmaster was the closest he's ever got |
| 2:08.5 | to himself on TV. If you listen to one episode of the podcast of this podcast this year, |
... |
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