My nipple really hurts. I mean really hurts. Yesterday I had it pierced while filming a TV show and right now I’m wondering whether it was worth it.

The Paramount Brighton Comedy Festival takes place in a few weeks, and although only in its second year, has attracted some of the biggest names in comedy. Johnny Vegas, Jo Brand, Bill Bailey, Dave Gorman and yours truly are just a few of those scheduled to make an appearance.
Someone at Paramount thought it would be fun to give a comedian 100 quid, then film them spending it in Brighton – not a bad idea. Someone else at Paramount thought I should host all twelve episodes – an even better idea.
One of the guests on the show, Simon Evans, went to spend his money on a tattoo that cost a total of seventy-five pounds. Hmmm, twenty-five pounds left over, the exact amount needed to get a nipple pierced – my nipple. Knowing it would make watchable television I agreed. Besides, I had always wanted a nipple piercing but for some reason had never got around to it. As the clamp was applied to my left breast I suddenly remembered the reason – it really hurts.
I thought I knew pain until yesterday. In my thirty-three years on the planet I’ve had a fractured skull, three sprains, fourteen stitches and kidney stones. If I could combine all that pain and focus it into a thirty second period it may come close to what I felt yesterday. Put simply, it felt as though somebody was passing a shard of metal through my flesh.
You know you’ve put yourself through pain when even women wince. Men rarely receive sympathy from the fairer sex when it comes to pain, mainly because in the back of the female mind is a little voice going “You think that’s pain? Try pushing out a baby, you wuss.”
It was only when I saw the looks on the faces of women friends, and their confirmations of “Now that is pain” that I realised what a truly stupid stunt I had taken part in. My only consolation came from John the tattooist. As I sat squeezing the stuffing from a handy stress ball, my nipples throbbing like the speakers of a teenager’s stereo, I queried, “Is that the most painful place to get a piercing?”
His reply: “Not quite. Apparently the end of the nob is a bit tender.”
Luckily things were a lot less painful when recording the show with award winning Canadian comic Mike Wilmont. You may have seen him at the Kilkenny Cat Laughs Festival, or on ‘The Panel’ with Dara O Briain? Brilliant comic. By the time you read this, Mike & I will hve done a show together for the Murphy’s UnCorked Festival at the Everyman Theatre on the October 4. I’m then back in Ireland for a few solo dates including Limerick, Waterford, Armagh and The Sugar Club in Dublin. We had to split the tour dates due to commitments in the UK so I’m over again in November doing two shows with Des Bishop in Ennis and Letterkenny, and then another solo show in Dublin at Whelans, this time featuring an ISL sign interpreter.
I’ve been including shows for the deaf for a number of years now and although I’ve toured Ireland twice before, this will be the first time I’ve performed any shows here with a sign interpreter. I can’t wait to learn the sign language for such Irish phrases as “craic”, “yer man” and “ah sure, you know yourself”.

Adam Hills’ Cut Loose Tour: Dolans, Limerick (Oct 22); Garter Lane Theatre, Waterford (23); Market Place Theatre, Armagh (25); Empire, Belfast (28); Sugar Club, Dublin (30); Glór Irish Music Centre, Ennis (with Des Bishop) (Nov 27); An Grianan Theatre, Letterkenny (29); Whelans, Dublin (with ISL sign
interpreter) (30)