The day before I’m supposed to watch Paddy Young perform a work-in-progress version of his new show Will Sir Be Laughing Alone?, I’m told the gig has been cancelled; the standup has sliced his hand open and is about to have surgery. Soon after, Young shares a photo of himself on Instagram in a hospital gown, thanking the Australian comedian Sam Campbell for “bringing the sword to my home” – a post quickly rehashed by the tabloids (The Mirror: “SNL UK star Paddy Young hospitalised after samurai sword accident”). When I finally see him on stage a fortnight later, he’s dosed up on codeine, his arm is in a sling and he’s in the uncertain early stages of refashioning this bizarre anecdote into a routine.
“You’re getting an exclusive on the hand,” he tells me in an east London coffee shop the next day, after I’ve opened a bottle of water for him. Young and Campbell, who recently collaborated on the winningly madcap Channel 4 series Make That Movie, were preparing to host their occasional comedy night Floggers, which involves them dressing up as old men (fat suits, wigs, prosthetics) and helming a real daytime TV-style auction. Campbell had ordered the sword online as a prop, and when the pair’s Uber arrived Young hurriedly picked up the bag it was in. “Blood splattered up the wall like Kill Bill – we all laughed initially.” When his housemates removed the tea towel they’d wrapped around his hand “they could see yellow, which I think is tendon or muscle. Then I fainted.” He went to A&E for stitches but still did the show afterwards – “I cringe thinking about it because I was basically juggling [in the show]” – returning to hospital later to learn that one tendon was 90% lacerated and required an operation. Just before surgery, Young passed out again.
