Skinner reveals fears of stand-up return

The fear of making his stand-up comeback after 10 years away from live performing is the subject of a new book by Black Country comic Frank Skinner.

The 51-year-old kept a diary of his thoughts and feelings as he prepared to take the stage at the Edinburgh Festival last year, the scene of his professional breakthrough in 1988 when he won the Perrier Award.

He went on to perform a countrywide tour to rave reviews.

The seeds of a return were sown at the Hawthorns ground, where the avid Baggies supporter was told by a fellow fan that he had been described by a morning newspaper as “the ghastly Frank Skinner”. In the book Skinner – born Chris Collins in Oldbury in 1957 – calls it an “unpleasant aside” but admits the criticism nagged at him for weeks.

He performed some low-profile warm-up shows before returning to the Pleasance Cabaret Bar in Edinburgh for a two-week stint of mixed audience reactions.

“I was still working it all out, rubbing out the rules I learnt 20 years ago and rewriting them as I went along,” he writes in Frank Skinner On The Road, published next month.

“Maybe I should have done a refresher course, but you know, part of me would miss the tragedy of it, the unique but scary world of a post-punchline silence, the creak of the boards as I prowl the stage wondering if I’ll ever hear laughter again.”