By blending banter with heartfelt discussion, rising radio stars John Robins and Elis James have created a forum that allows men to open up about masculinity and mental health – with jokes attached

In the two days between the announcement that their weekly Radio X show would be ending and the final broadcast, comedians John Robins and Elis James received 110 pages of emails from their listeners. One of the emails they read out in that final show in April, from a fan called Frank, said the show had been his greatest solace in his darkest moments, during its five years on air; that James and Robins were “the most constant positive voices in my life”. Frank added that he’d been moved to try out standup comedy himself, and finished by saying, “You’ve both inspired me to be a better man: a man who isn’t afraid to tell his best mate that he loves him.”

It was a typical message. Almost every one of their 264 podcasts – edited down to an hour from the three-hour radio show, with the Kasabian songs and adverts taken out – begins with heartfelt letters of gratitude from their “PCDs” (Podcast Devotees), male and female alike. There are more than 11,000 PCDs in the dedicated Facebook group, and they have often shared their experiences of depression, anxiety, loneliness, grief, breakdowns, break-ups, addiction, suicidal thoughts – with each other and with the two DJs. And each of them contained some variation of the phrase: “The one thing that got me through this period was knowing that, every Saturday, your podcast would cheer me up.”

A few days after their last show, the reason for the departure became clear: they have been snapped up by BBC Radio 5 Live, where they begin a new weekly show at the end of this month.

They already have robust careers outside the radio studio: in 2017 Robins won the prestigious Edinburgh Comedy Award; James has starred in recent BBC TV series Crims and Josh; last year they wrote and toured a jointly penned book, The Holy Vible, and both are touring new shows later this year (James’s is in Welsh). This summer will see them launch an additional standalone podcast, discussing mental health themes.

Some kinds of comedy value edginess above all else, but there is a warmth and relatability to the duo that have seen them become a cult phenomenon. In person, they are the matey radio double act that has won them both fans and awards. James’s cheerful west-Welsh burr and self-effacing warmth is in contrast to Robins’s mordant, exasperated wit – he is often a hair’s breadth away from sounding like Alan Partridge losing his temper, usually about something nerdy or banal, like a minor breach of the Highway Code.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Its just me chatting to my friend for an hour or two’: Elis James (right), with John Robins. Photograph: Pal Hansen/The Observer

“John is funnier when he’s sad, whereas I’m funnier when I’m happy,” James says. Most of all, they take the piss out of each other, interrupt each other, and make each other laugh in that unforced way that friends do.

Robins and James first met in spring 2005, in their early 20s, barely a handful of gigs into their standup careers. At that stage the shows were unpaid slots on the open-mic circuit. With Robins based in Bristol and James in Cardiff, they were close enough that their paths kept crossing, and they became good friends. They had both done radio guest slots, and epic chats on the long drives to and from standup gigs convinced them to make a go of it. James raises an eyebrow and adopts a slimeball-from-The-Apprentice voice: “We were having these long, funny conversations anyway, so the dream was: let’s monetise it.”

When Robins followed James to London in 2012, he signed with the same promoter. A pilot for Radio X followed in 2013, and their first show aired in February 2014. In their XFM/Radio X weekend slot, they followed Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, Jimmy Carr, Russell Brand, Adam and Joe, and Josh Widdicombe.

They are tweaking British masculinity at the edges

For Robins, the podcast format helps forge a uniquely intimate relationship. “It’s partly because you choose the moment at which you listen: and those are probably moments where you’re on your own, perhaps on a commute, or running. You have a much more captive audience than TV has. It can feel like what we’re doing is having 200,000 three-way conversations, simultaneously. And likewise, when I listen to Kermode and Mayo, or Adam and Joe, or In Our Time, there’s a dialogue in my head between whoever’s on and me. And people go to a podcast when they need to retreat… That might be following someone’s death; the loss of a child; it might be following a diagnosis; it might be during treatment for cancer.

“People grow to really like you and feel like they’re friends with you,” he adds. “To the point that when, 150 shows in, you suddenly say something they disagree with, they feel this incredible sense of betrayal.”

“Like when you said you didn’t like dogs,” James chips in, recalling their bemusement. “We got emails saying, ‘Hi guys – I really love the show, but I have a dog. So, where does this leave us?’”

One of the show’s great strengths is listening to two friends chat honestly to each other, James says.

“Even when John talked about a relationship breakup on air, I still made fun of him. Because I know the rules, because we’re mates – and that’s what I would have done if we were discussing it off air, too. It would have been dishonest if I’d put my hand on his knee and said [he adopts a sombre tone], ‘Let’s play a Stereophonics song.’”

There is something endearing about their rather normie, blokey passion for sport, rock music and boozing – Robins’s encomiums to particular pubs are works of art in themselves – set alongside their disarming candour and compassion. It is as if they are tweaking British masculinity at the edges, and in doing so letting in a lot of much-needed light. On one occasion, in response to a listener’s email, they had a sensitive discussion about the importance of consent in sexual relationships – and then somehow found a way to gently segue back to the usual self-deprecating banter, silly games and lighthearted ribbing.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘I’ve always been incredibly open with my male friends. That is normal to me’: John Robins (left), with Elis James. Photograph: Pål Hansen/The Observer

“In terms of the masculinity thing,” James says, “both John and I grew up in small towns and went to normal schools. We don’t have showbiz backgrounds. So I know how men normally talk to each other – and how some men don’t.”

“I think I’m kind of the opposite,” Robins counters: “I don’t know how men talk to each other, because I was brought up by my mum and my sister, and my mum’s a counsellor. So my entire upbringing, the way of communicating, was emotional. I’ve always been incredibly open with my male friends. That is much more normal to me than two blokes in a pub not telling each other about the fact that their marriages are falling apart – I think it’s terribly sad if people don’t feel they can open up to their friends.”

A central component of their philosophy seems to be: “Don’t be a dick.”

“One of the things I dislike about some comedy is that it can often be quite mean,” says James. But most of their generation, now in their mid- to late 30s, people like James Acaster, Nish Kumar, Josie Long, Isy Suttie (James’s partner) and Sara Pascoe (Robins’s ex), seem to get along. “There’s a persistent myth that comedians are all back-stabbing, bitter hacks,” says James. “And that hasn’t been true for about 10 years,” interjects Robins.

At present, at the more combative end of the comedy spectrum is a trope that amounts to little more than a Jim Davidson or Jeremy Clarkson whine reheated for the Twitter age: the idea that you can’t say anything these days, and that young people are offended by everything. It’s something that rankles with Robins in particular. “If Ricky Gervais punched down any further he’d lose his balance,” he wrote in a column in the Metro in April. A week later, ex-Python Terry Gilliam made headlines in the Daily Mail with the complaint: “We can’t laugh at anybody because it causes offence.”

“Well then he’s thick,” says Robins, without hesitation. “They all are. Jonathan Pie is thick. Terry Gilliam is thick. It’s a complete fallacy.”

But why is the idea of a generation of “snowflakes” on the rise at the moment?

“It seems to be mainly privileged white men, who see other people getting more freedom, more equality and more opportunity as somehow taking something away from them. It’s the same principle that’s fed the far right for the past century. What’s worse is when it is people with more opportunity than most making that point, doing it on TV, with a huge platform. You are the 1% of the 1% of the 1%. That is how lucky you are. And you’re saying, ‘Well, if a man can transition to a woman, then… I’m a dustbin.’ Ugh.”

They seem as put off by arrogance as they are by mean-spiritedness. For Robins, self-doubt is a constant companion, but a creative engine, too. His new show is called Hot Shame, a reflection of “the moments in life that haunt me”. “I’m lucky in that when I’m at my absolute lowest, at some point I’ll be able to float above that moment and laugh, to see how ludicrous it is for a man to burst in to tears because he’s worried he’s bought the wrong dehumidifier.”

It is exactly this kind of relatable absurdity which keeps their fans’ praise flooding in. “I’m always surprised by it, every day,” says James of their fans. “Because if I wasn’t surprised by it, I would become an egomaniac. If you ever thought that that was the correct order of things, you would become quite odd. It’s just me chatting to my friend for an hour or two – and that just happens to mean an awful lot to some people.”

Elis James and John Robins present BBC Radio 5 Live on Fridays, 1-3pm, from 31 May