Jon Holmes Says The C-Word

In 2023, Jon Holmes was diagnosed with prostate cancer - he's doing alright now, don't worry. And because men don't really talk about this stuff and "everything is content", Jon and I have recorded brutally honest, raw and emotional, and really very, very funny interviews with loads of brilliant men who are all members of the club that no one wants to be a part of and turned it into a series for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.

Those men include Eric Idle, Stephen Fry, Jeremy Bowen, Richard Herring, Mark Steel, Matt Forde, Nick Owen, Mike Peters, Jeremy Langmead, Ben Richards, and Colin McFarlane and - bloody hell - they were generous with their time and their stories and their willingness to talk about bodyparts.

This series has had a profound effect on me. I've learned loads, been in awe of our guests openness and honesty, laughed so much, cried a fair bit. And it has, in no small part, helped me carry on after my wonderful mum died of cancer while we were making the series. To be producing a genuinely funny and brutally honest series about cancer while processing the biggest loss as a result of cancer has helped me enormously. And the messages from listeners for our bonus episodes have been absolutely incredible. I think/hope we have done some good here.

I urge you to listen to it because you'll learn an incredible amount about the things to look out for, bodily absurdities and oddities, and the things to speak to doctors about when it comes to cancer and, if you spot any of them, GO AND GET YOURSELF CHECKED NICE AND EARLY. After what my family and I have been through, I can say with some certainty that going and getting poked and prodded by doctors is absolutely worth it and absolutely better than dying of cancer.