JAMES ACASTER UPDATES
The unofficial source for all things James Acaster
About James
Behind the Scenes
Stand-Up Comedy
REPERTOIRE
Acaster's Repertoire is a four-part comedy special with a connecting storyline. All four shows were performed on the same day in 2017 at the Tabernacle in Notting Hill. The first three shows - Recognise, Represent, and Reset - were individual shows Acaster toured and performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, while the fourth show Recap is a collection of material from his previous unrecorded shows. You can watch all four parts of Repertoire on Netflix, where it was released in 2018.
COLD LASAGNE HATE MYSELF 1999
Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999 was filmed at EartH in December 2019. It is (loosely) about how 1999 was the best year of his life, and (more clearly) about how 2017 was the worst year of his life. This was his first personal show, and last before a long hiatus, so marks a real shift in Acaster's work. He livestreamed the show in December 2020 to test reactions from audiences, before eventually deciding to host it on his website, where you can find it now.The show also comes alongside a forty-minute special of cut material called Make a New Tomorrow.
HECKLERS WELCOME
Acaster's comeback show and most recent special is called Hecklers Welcome. He toured this show, inviting audience members to behave as they pleased, in order to change his reaction to audiences not behaving exactly how he wanted them to - which was his biggest problem with comedy. The special features both written material and response to heckles, and was filmed in 2024 in Northampton. You can watch it on HBO Max in America, and on Sky or Now TV in the UK.Also, an official vinyl pressing of another show with more heckles recorded in Kettering (James's hometown) can be purchased here. It's also on streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music.
Books
JAMES ACASTER'S CLASSIC SCRAPES
Classic Scrapes chronicles the mishaps and farcical adventures Acaster has found himself in over the years, popularised by a regular segment when he appeared on Josh Widdicombe’s XFM radio show.It was James's first book, and was published in 2017.He said about the book, "I have lived an extremely blessed life save for enough awful/stupid experiences to fill a book with and so I thought it only fair to fill a book with them. Even if you don’t find this book amusing then I hope you can at least use it to help navigate you through this life as it flags up what not to do at every single turn. In the same way that it is important that we document the mistakes of history so we do not make those same mistakes again, it has been important for me to write my personal scrapes down so that I stand even the slightest chance of not ruining my entire life one day."Amazon
PERFECT SOUND WHATEVER
This book charts an obsessive music challenge which Acaster undertook in order to get his life back on track after a breakdown. He obsessively collected music from 2016, and the book contains his heartfelt & beautifully written reviews of the music that means so much to him, alongside tales of his depression and recovery.The book was published in 2018. Acaster said, "This has been a big old project for me and I feel extremely lucky to be able to turn it into a book. I bought over 500 albums, all released in 2016, because I was having a tough 2017 and thank god this book finally gives me something to show for it. This is a book about obsession, mental health and reconnecting with modern day music again. Oh and also about the greatest year for music of all time – 2016."Amazon
JAMES ACASTER'S GUIDE TO QUITTING SOCIAL MEDIA
This book is Acaster's third, published in 2022, and differs from his first two forays into writing due to its fictional nature. It is a parodical self-help book, detailing the fantastical ways Acaster quit all forms of social media in 2019."Employing the help of a mysterious, wealthy benefactor named Clancy Dellahue, and an ever-growing gang of misfits (aka the Tangfastic Crew), James found ways to replace his online friends (he joined the scouts) and spy on his exes (climbing ropes, zip lines, fake moustache) as well as anonymously bullying strangers, seeing photos of everyone’s dogs, getting public figures fired, arguing with everybody about everything, and so much more."Amazon
Podcasts
James Acaster's Perfect Sounds (2020-2022)
James Acaster tries to convince comedians that 2016 is the greatest year for music, ever, by making them listen to one of his favourite albums and discuss their thoughts.
BBC Sounds / Spotify / Apple
Springleaf
(2023)
A true(ish) crime podcast; an audio sitcom about an undercover cop named Pat Springleaf with a heart of gold.
James Acaster's Findings
(2013-2014)
James Acaster is one of the top researchers working in the UK today. In these five shows, he probes deeply into a variety of subjects - Bread, Wood, Fruit, Wheels, and Paint - and shares his eye-opening conclusions. Accompanied by Nathaniel Metcalfe and Donna from the Complaints Department (Bryony Hannah).
Other
TEMPS
In February 2020, James Acaster set out to make a mockumentary about quitting stand-up to become a pretentious musician. With Louis Theroux’s production company behind him, he shot a pilot: he drove to Kettering, dug out his childhood drum kit (unused for 12 years), and hauled it to a London studio - plus a pit stop to collect his old prize possession, a human-sized fluorescent alligator in a pink top hat, and a T-shirt reading Party Gator.In the pilot, Acaster jammed on the kit, reverently stared at his muse (the Party Gator), then finally admitted his drumming was too sloppy and drafted Seb Rochford to play over the top of the tracks.Then lockdown hit. The show was scrapped, but James was left with piles of drum recordings - and a Rolodex of musician contacts from the Perfect Sounds era. Over two years, he emailed tracks to his heroes, piecing together a genreless experimental album chronicling the death and rebirth of the Party Gator.PARTY GATOR PURGATORY - the album
HYPOTHETICAL
Comedy panel show hosted by James, alongside fellow comedian and friend Josh Widdicombe. The TV series features teams of celebrity guests (often comedians), who are presented with a bizarre hypothetical situation by Widdicombe. The guests must explain how they would deal with the situation, following the rules given by James, who then awards points based on how well he thinks they have done. The show ran for four series, from 2019-2022.You can watch it on:
U / Sky / Apple TV / BBC iPlayer (Currently series 1 only)The show also had one series of a spinoff podcast, which you can listen to here:
Acast / Spotify / Apple
SWEET HOME KETTERINGA
Acaster's first foray into mockumentary-making, Sweet Home... is a web series in which James Acaster visits his hometown with a camera crew in tow. It features Jack Barry, Emma Sidi, and Turtle Canyon's own Stuart Laws.(BEAR BROS!)Watch Series 1 & 2 here
GHOSTBUSTERS
James has had a couple of minor roles in films, such as Cinderella and Seize Them!, but his most prominent role by far is as parabiologist Lars Pinfield in the 2024 film Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.It isn't available to stream in the UK, but you can buy it in the usual places.
DJ SETS
It's no surprise, based on his love of music, that James has performed the occasional DJ set. Most are at his friends' parties (or weddings), but he's done a couple for live audiences - including two at Glastonbury with the great Nish Kumar.You can find a thread of information about those here from my personal Twitter, (unprofessional - oops!) but here are the important links:Glastonbury 2024 setlist / Glastonury 2025 setlist / Scared to Dance Oct 2024 setlist / 'On Rotation' songs playlist
SOCIAL MEDIA
James quit social media in 2019, for a multitude of reasons (read the book!), but there are a couple of platforms he's still lurking on.They're his accounts, anyway. Whether they're active or not is another question.Find them here:
(P.S: to my knowledge, you can't message or contact James on any of these sites. But if you find a way, please, for the love of God, don't! He quit social media for a reason, I promise he does not want you to message him. Let the man be)
MISCELLANEOUS
• My YouTube playlist containing hundreds of videos & clips
• Playlist of all podcast guest appearences (thank you Scooter!)
• Sounds Random, BBC 3 miniseries hosted by Acaster
About Me
Hi! :) Thanks for visiting the website! My name is Evangeline, but most people call me Annie.I'm nineteen years old, from the North of England and studying in London. I love to read, and to write, and to go on walks in this beautiful city that I'm incredibly lucky to live in. And - quite obviously - I'm a big fan of stand-up comedy. Especially James Acaster.
Weirdly enough, it was an Australian comic who got me into British comedy. Picture this: it's November of 2023, and my dad (you can stop picturing now, because you probably don't know what my dad looks like) tells me that after dinner, we'll be watching the new episode of Taskmaster. Sure. Then he tells me there's a comedian on there he thinks I'll really like, and shows me a video of Sam Campbell, and I promptly have my mind blown (in a good way) by the notion of absurdist comedy.After returning from my dad's house, I binged the entire series of Taskmaster, and then everything I could find on the internet of Sam Campbell, because I can't like anything a normal amount. I started engaging with the circles of comedy fans on the internet who were also just discovering Sam, and I quickly noticed a theme - all of the lovely people I met seemed to really love James Acaster. So, I gave his series of Taskmaster a go, and by the end of December, I was pretty much just as enthusiastic as I am now, with half of the knowledge.
Since then, I've grown to love comedy even more. I know quite a lot about comedy, but Acaster is still my favourite. I moved to London in September of 2024 for university, which opened even more comedy doors for me - I'm studying Creative Writing and English Literature, and all of my creative writing is about comedy. (Again, I can't like anything a normal amount. I mean it.)I've gotten to see so many incredible comedians live, which is a feeling like no other, and then meet them and awkwardly stutter about how much their jokes mean to me. I've gotten to meet so many of the beautiful friends I made through the online community, and I could not dream of having a better little group of comedy freaks in my circle (shoutout Pickle Town!).I've gotten to see James Acaster live over fifty times. Oops.
At times it's stressful being alone in the big city, but comedy gave me a community, and I couldn't be more grateful. Cheesy as it is, that's why I started this account - showing off my comedy-going habits on TikTok inevitably earned me comments asking How on earth are you doing this? Where do you find all these tickets? How do you do it so quickly? How do you know everything all the time about James Acaster!?If you think about it that way, I'm doing a good deed. So, you're welcome.I started James Acaster Updates in September 2025, a year after the big move, and if I can convince just one more lonely autistic nerd to find community in comedy crowds, it will have done its job.
My personal accounts (not AcasterUpdates):
Twitter / TikTok / Instagram / Letterboxd