Show caption ‘I’ve lost my fear’ … standup and TV celebrity Paul Sinha, who is touring his show Hazy Little Thing Called Love. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian Comedy The Chase’s Paul Sinha: ‘I’m going for laughs in bleak places’ The gameshow star and former GP on how he wrote his ‘career best’ standup material after getting married – and being diagnosed with Parkinson’s Brian Logan Thu 23 Jan 2020 06.00 GMT Share on Facebook

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‘You don’t expect the most eventful year of your life to be in your late 40s,” says Paul Sinha. “No one expects that.” He thought the extraordinary parts of his story – quitting medicine to become a standup (comedy’s only gay Asian former GP, as he was once known), an Edinburgh Comedy award nomination, and fame on an ITV quiz show, The Chase – were behind him. But that was to reckon without what 2019 had in store.

His diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease was front-page news in June, which was almost as shocking to the 49-year-old as the diagnosis. “At no stage until then did I have an idea of who I was in terms of celebrity,” says Sinha. Suddenly, his face was emblazoned across the tabloids, while he tried to process the life-changing news about his health. Seven months on, he has turned the experience – and others in a 12-month period in which Sinha was married, humiliated on Dave TV’s Taskmaster, crowned UK quiz champion for the first time, and treated to “the most extraordinary month of my comedy career” at the New Zealand comedy festival – into a new touring show. “I have,” he says over hot chocolate on the eve of his tour, “a lot of material.”

The show is called Hazy Little Thing Called Love, a title that survives the set he prepped for last year’s fringe – before his diagnosis blew that plan off course. He might have known something was up when, on Taskmaster, he found himself “completely unable to perform any tasks that were put in front of me”. But it wasn’t until New Zealand in May that Sinha was forced to face up to his deteriorating health. He was at his standup peak, playing to sell-out crowds in a country where The Chase is watched daily by millions. “It was the most positive experience of my life,” he says, but at the same time, “my health was falling apart.”

‘I had a fall. I knew it was Parkinson’s, motor neurone disease or multiple sclerosis’ … Paul Sinha. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

“I was limping through the streets of Auckland. I had a fall at three in the morning. I knew in my heart of hearts, being a trained doctor, that I had one of the big three: Parkinson’s, motor neurone disease or multiple sclerosis. And I knew Parkinson’s was the likely one.”

What he didn’t – and still doesn’t – know was what the future held for him. So, in lieu of the fringe, he honeymooned early with his now husband, ­­­Oliver. (They married in December.) After that, he experienced “the most intensely creative period of my life” (a side effect, he thinks, of his Parkinson’s drugs) during which he wrote his new show in three weeks flat. Sinha now describes that show as a career best. “There’s a fire and ferocity about the material, because I’m going for laughs in some pretty bleak places.”

“The thing that has changed most since the diagnosis,” he goes on, “is that I’ve lost my fear. I’ve always been one of those comics who doesn’t say much on panel shows because I’m terrified of saying the wrong thing or offending the wrong person. But now, I’ve lost all that. I’ve got the exaggerated carpe diem that a lot of people get with their diagnosis.”

In the past, he says, he has fretted about what kind of comedian he is, who comes to see him, and why. “When you’re on telly, you’re defined by what you do on telly,” he says. “People look at you and go: ‘He’s that guy that answers questions on a quiz.’ It’s been a battle to make my compromises with that and still be the comedian I want to be.”

In part, that’s about audiences: Sinha wanted “young, hip and aspirational” and he got senior-citizen fans of The Chase. But now, “I’ve lost my anxiety about that. If you’ve bought a ticket to see me perform, you’re heroes in my book. You’re better than the people who didn’t buy tickets.”

Facing the cameras … Paul Sinha on ITV’s The Chase. Photograph: ITV

He’s no longer trying, either, to right the world’s wrongs through comedy. Once, his material was political as well as personal: a memorable 2010 routine recounted his contretemps on live radio with the deputy chairman of the BNP. But the last few years, says Sinha, “have knocked the stuffing out of me”, politically speaking. “When I started off as the first openly gay Asian comedian, there were certainties and a clear imagined enemy to rail against. I now realise that the old assumptions, that comedy involved standing on stage and talking to people who shared your metropolitan values, aren’t necessarily true.”

“I’ve lost the will to talk about [politics],” he says. “Because it seems when you open your mouth to air a sincerely held opinion these days, you’re making enemies. Some comedians are financially successful enough to not be too bothered about that. I’m not one of them.