Frank Skinner exits the Starbucks bathroom and sits down opposite me. His publicist brings over our drinks; he sends her back, first for milk, and then for a stick to retrieve the teabag. “Sorry, I’m not normally screaming at women to do things for me,” he jokes. “I blame Alexa. She’s got me into a bad habit. Anyway, hello.”
There’s something charmingly, transparently incorrigible about the West Bromwich-born comedian: his is a mind foraging constantly for a punchline. Everything Skinner says carries with it a sort of stealthy, amused irony – an irony that’s stuck with him through his decades-long transmogrification from football-loving, filth-mongering figurehead of Nineties “New Lad” culture to the proudly Catholic, poetry-referencing MBE recipient that sits before me today. (Really, this was a shift more in perception than reality – Skinner was a sober, Christ-worshipping arts lover back in his rowdy heyday, and still now revels in football and sex jokes.)
