Jack Whitehall reveals hilarious moment he hired John Bishop for a stand-up gig but couldn’t afford to pay him

Jack Whitehall has recalled a hilarious situation from his student days involving Liverpool-born comedian John Bishop. Appearing on the Have A Word podcast hosted by Dan Nightingale and Adam Rowe, Jack brought up memories of when he and his fellow comedian friends would organise student parties and stand-up gigs.

He revealed that he hired John Bishop, who was starting out his stand-up career at the time, for a gig at his student house but later realised they didn’t have enough money to pay the Liverpudlian. Speaking on the podcast, Jack said: “We had John Bishop do a gig a couple of months later, and we ran out of cash because we hadn’t divvied it up properly. We had to give him £70 cash. That’s how student it was.”

At the time, John was a medical representative for a pharmaceutical company, which he later left to pursue his comedy career full-time. John Bishop performed stand-up comedy for the first time in Manchester in October 2000. He made it to the final of competitions, including So You Think You’re Funny, the Daily Telegraph Open Mic Awards, the BBC New Comedy Awards, and the City Life North West Comedian of The Year Award, which he won.

Despite not taking home a huge paycheck during his early days, John is now one of the highest-earning comedians in the UK. In September 2016, he ranked tenth on Forbes‘ Top 10 Highest Paid Comedians List, earning £5.4 million a year.

The comedian recently enjoyed an evening with Line of Duty star Vicky McClure’s Our Dementia Choir and claimed he had "witnessed the healing effect of music". John took to his Instagram page to share a video of himself singing along to I’m a Believer by The Monkees with the choir.

Our Dementia Choir began as part of a documentary created for BBC1 in 2018 and was formed by Vicky McClure. The two-part series saw Vicky take viewers on a deeply personal journey where she set out to discover the true extent of music’s power in combating dementia. John initially discovered the choir after watching the documentary, which he said moved him following his mum’s dementia diagnosis.