John Bishop's son's condition explained as pair…

John Bishop's son's condition explained as pair explore deafness diagnosis

John Bishop is a loving father to three sons, and the stand-up comic is no stranger to expressing how proud of them he is.

But the funnyman's personal life hasn't came without its troubles, with a new ITV documentary airing on Thursday screening John's tough journey alongside his eldest son, Joe Bishop.

In John & Joe Bishop: Life After Deaf, the father and son team embark on a journey to embrace their intimate connection with the deaf community, following Joe beginning to lose his hearing as a teenager.

The Mirror reports that during the documentary, the duo set out to find out more about deafness and the community affected by it - also capturing John's journey to delivering an entirely signed stand-up comedy show to a deaf audience. Speaking about the personal trip on Instagram, John said that the show was the 'hardest piece of television' he has ever made.

He penned: "It's started out as a documentary about me learning sign language to do stand-up and turned instead to a healing process for me and my family, which we never expected and which is still ongoing."

What condition does John Bishop's son have?

John Bishop's son Joe Bishop has an autoimmune condition that causes progressive deafness and is now partially deaf because of the condition. The condition developed when Joe was a teenager after he contracted a virus that destroyed most of his hearing at the age of 15.

For the past 12 years the Bishop family have been trying to 'fix' Joe's hearing, however the new documentary sees the family now reconsider their stance, instead looking to 'embrace' Joe's deafness. In the first step towards this, the father and son have been learning British Sign Language together.

Who are John Bishop's sons?

Joe, 27, is John's eldest son, and the comedian has two other sons, Luke and Daniel. Luke is John's second son, who the funnyman has described as "a beautiful boy who I used to be able to pick up with one hand but who is now bigger than I am".

Daniel is John's youngest son and earlier this year the comedian posted a heart-warming message to him for his birthday, praising him for adopting a dog. Sharing a picture of Daniel and his pooch to Instagram, John said: "Using your own ambition as a platform to see life positively you still have enough love in your heart to take on the responsibility of adopting Tyson.

"It says a lot about you as a person and every day I am proud to see the man you are becoming."

Back in 2018, John also opened up about his sons as he was awarded Ally of the Year at the NatWest LGBT Awards, saying at the time that he was "massively proud" of his gay son. Speaking about his children at the awards, he joked: “I brought my whole family, my wife and my three sons who I love and I am massively proud of. Like all parents we have problems with them.

“One of my sons has a tattoo on his ankle that was meant to be Africa but looks like Australia, one of my sons mumbles and one of my sons is a gay man. I’ll be honest, there’s been loads of nights when me and my wife have sat up and worried and worried and worried.