Dom Joly: I have no pension – I panic about dying in savage poverty

Dom Joly, 58, is a comedian, writer and travel presenter best known for creating (with Sam Cadman) and starring in the hidden-camera series Trigger Happy TV, which first aired in 2000. He lives in Gloucestershire with his Canadian wife, Stacey; they have two grown-up children, Parker and Jackson. He is touring a 25th-anniversary Trigger Happy TV show while working on a new digital series, Mugwuffin; his forthcoming book, The Soul Tourist, is out in November. Here, he looks back at the moments that shaped him, from growing up in Beirut and being sent to boarding school at seven, to picking his children up in a tank, and injecting weight-loss drug Mounjaro in a vicar’s bathroom. Shorts I’m 58 f**king years old and I’m still dressing up and annoying people. I spent 20 years trying other things because I never thought Trigger Happy TV was something I had worked for; hidden-camera comedy was simply something I could do. Then I started working with Sam Cadman again. We laugh constantly and the stuff we make is really funny. So, f**k it. I’m going to be annoying people until I die. I was sent away to boarding school at seven and effectively never saw my parents again. That weird, posh British system is what f**ks up your average Tory cabinet minister. I also grew up in Beirut during the civil war, which was exciting but must have left me with some trauma. Panic attacks began at 18 and continued into my twenties. I was diagnosed with clinical depression while Trigger Happy TV was taking off. Everything was going brilliantly, but after filming one scene I got into a cab and told Sam: “I have to go home.” I started taking antidepressants and have been pretty good since. There is a price to pay for being creative. The people I mocked for commuting to sensible jobs are now retiring with pensions, while I spent my mornings dressed as a squirrel shouting: “F**k you.” Accessing the strange part of your brain that produces comedy may also open the door to something darker. One day, everything is exciting; the next, the diary is empty. I’ve made the terrible mistake of marrying another artist. I should have married an accountant or lawyer who could do the finances. People suggest ADHD, but everyone is f**king ADHD at the moment. Maybe I’m just shit at it. I panic about money but I have had the best 30 years imaginable. Whenever I made money, I spent it and took my children to extraordinary places. I have no pension – just a financial spiral. My wife refuses to give me any approval whatsoever. That may be the secret of our marriage because it leaves me permanently searching for it. If she gave it to me unconditionally, I would probably leave. We met when I was on the rebound and I proposed after six months. Stacey is Canadian, decent and apologetic; I am rude, loud and inappropriate. I make her laugh, and she grounds me and persuades people I cannot be entirely awful. I’m a knob, but I’m not a bad person. I am an attention-seeker, a narcissist and all over the place. My children tell me to shut the f**k up. Stand-ups are often dazzling onstage and the dullest people alive afterwards; I think I am funnier offstage, trying desperately to make everyone laugh. I’m very needy. My daughter thought “Dom Joly” was something I went to London and did. At six, she asked: “Dad, are you Dom Joly?” Later, I collected the children from school in a tank, a police car and a fire engine. I thought it was brilliant. They were mortified. Neither is going near an unstable career – my daughter is already saving for a pension. I never wanted fame: I wanted a purpose. I had been a diplomat in Prague and worked in Parliament and the City. My father was a frustrated writer who entered the family business, hated it and stayed for his entire career. I told him I wanted work to be something I loved rather than something I endured to fund my life. He said such a job did not exist. I said: “Bullshit.” Trigger Happy TV was YouTube before YouTube existed. It arrived in the gap between big studio shows and social media. Hidden-camera comedy was the lowest rung, and I wanted to make it beautiful, surreal and cool. Now online pranks are everywhere, but most are faked, cruel or shit. Twenty-five years later, I have come back to show the kids how it is done. People insist you could not make Trigger Happy now because everyone is too woke or you would get stabbed. It is bollocks. Sam and I returned to the streets and found people almost invariably kind and patient. The difference is technology: if I filmed the giant snail crossing the road today, 50 people would upload it first, then accuse me of stealing their idea. I inject myself with Mounjaro once a week and I have not earned my weight loss at all. I lost about 15kg in three months without doing an ounce of work. That annoys people, and I love it. My wife calls it cheating. If you have a headache, you take a pill – you do not have to earn it. My first Mounjaro injection involved a vicar, a bathroom and her children walking past. When my injector arrived, I did not know how to use it, so I ended up in my neighbour’s bathroom – she is a vicar – with my trousers down while she showed me. I used to approach food like a Labrador at an all-day buffet, with no off switch. Now, after five mouthfuls, I think: “I’ve had enough.” I behave like a normal person. I would tell my younger self to get a pension and never sell the flat in Notting Hill. Apart from that, if I explained what he was going to do over the next 25 years, he would bite my f**king arm off. I have travelled, made things I am proud of, embarrassed my family and spent almost all the money. I just hope I don’t die in savage poverty. Dom Joly’s Trigger Happy TV 25th Anniversary Tour starts 9 September