Can I Have My Ball Back?

Can I Have My Ball Back? by Richard Herring (2022 Sphere hardcover 295pp)

 

Richard Herring is a UK comedian, writer and one of the pioneering podcasters. I was vaguely aware of some of his TV comedy in the 1990s but it was his RHLSTP podcast in recent years that brought him to my attention. In RHLSTP (Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast) he interviews other comedians, writers and media figures usually in front of a live audience. Any listener in recent years would have heard him occasionally mentioning his brush with cancer and now he’s written a book on the experience.

Much of Herring’s comedy is based on the shock value of talking frankly about the usually unmentionable and asking the usually unaskable question. He translates that well to this book which attempts to remove the shame usually associated with talking about both cancer and genitals, no mean feat.

In the midst of one of the Covid lock-downs in 2021 Herrings notices his right testicle is swollen. Not wanting to make a fuss he consults a GP who tells him its probably nothing. Fortunately for him he’s sent for an ultra-sound scan anyway and not long after he receives a call telling him he may have testicular cancer. Soon he’s facing having the testicle removed and all the fears that come along with that.

Being Herring, he somehow makes comedy out of the situation – this is a very funny book with running gags and jokes throughout. The overstretched UK health system comes out as the real heroes while meanwhile the author is forced to face his own mortality and what it means to be a man in today’s society.

Every few pages the main text is interrupted by ‘break-out box’ type articles on the history, culture and science of testicles. Although these are mainly interesting, I did feel there were probably a little too many of these and they got in the way of the story.

After his testicle is removed (it turned out to be almost entirely cancer) he goes through the mental and physical challenges of chemotherapy and recovery. Eventually he runs a marathon raising money for a cancer charity. We leave him better but paranoid about what else might go wrong.

I enjoyed Herring’s story, he tells it well without making himself out a brave hero or survivor. He raises many points and provokes a lot of thoughts you may not otherwise have.