Can I Have My Ball Back?: A memoir of masculinity, mortality and my right testicle

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For far from being a death sentence, testicular cancer has a 98 per cent survival rate – a statistic Herring wishes he’d known from the start – and his chemotherapy was a minor inconvenience rather than a life-changing upheaval. Is out in paperback this week (the perfect Christmas gift for the testicle owner or user in your family). Herring’s instinct is to make a joke about anything – one coping mechanism was to make a ventriloquist’s doll that looked like a swollen bollock for his online series – but occasionally the reminder of his mortality becomes acute, especially when he considers how much of his children’s formative years he might miss out on.

Twenty years ago, Richard Herring had a hit with Talking Cock, a stand-up show all about the penis that was licensed around the world and spawned a successful book. Whether they're nuts, bollocks, gonads or family jewels; from the phrase 'grow some balls' to infamous WWII songs about Hitler; Rich unpicks the tangle of emotions around his own testing times. Anyone going through similar experiences – of the cancer treatment, that is, not visualisation of a wife’s future seducer – is likely to find both solace and comic relief in the frankness and wit of Herring’s descriptions.These are normally based on their metaphorical links to fortitude – despite being famously not very pain-resilient at all – which is why Hitler having only one of them was such a powerful wartime burn. Most men's testicles are about the same size, but it's common for one to be slightly bigger than the other. As someone who follows Rich's career and someone who is going through testicle-related nonsense myself currently, this was a familiar experience. These sections are similar in tone to Talking Cock, in mocking the mythology around the testicles – as well as containing more elaborate euphemisms for the love spuds than you’ll find outside Roger’s Profanisaurus.

Nor does he consider that being a monoballer makes him any less than a man, under that very primitive definition of masculinity which is again interrogated with a very light touch.He even manages to film Taskmaster’s Champion Of Champions soon after treatment, and credits cancer with extending his life, as now he pays at least some attention to his health. It’s episode 8 of CIHMBB and Richard’s journey has taken him to meet his oncologist, Dr Arnand Sharma for the first time, who seems excited to meet the star of Taskmaster.

Telling Rich’s personal story alongside an exploration of what defines masculinity and ‘maleness’ in society, Can I Have My Ball Back?primarily charts his journey through the diagnoses and treatment he underwent last year, but addressed with the lightest of touches.

Whether they’re nuts, bollocks, gonads or family jewels; from the phrase ‘grow some balls’ to infamous WWII songs about Hitler; Rich unpicks the tangle of emotions around his own testing times.For the podcast Richard gets to interview Dr Sharma to get his side of the story and find out where the excised ball is and the truth about whether Dr Sharma really knew who Richard was. The idea he could be replaced in his wife Catie’s affections played much more for laughs as he imagines some smarmy mustachioed lothario quaffing his precious single-malt whiskey. THE shocking moment a man headbutts a neighbour when he asks for his ball back has been captured in terrifying Blink doorcam footage. Telling Rich's personal story alongside an exploration of what defines masculinity and 'maleness' in society, Can I Have My Ball Back?