Adam
Kay

Scriptwriter, performer & author.

Adam Kay is an award-winning writer and performer. His debut book, This is Going to Hurt, is a literary sensation: a Sunday Times number one bestseller for a record-smashing nine months, selling over a million copies in the UK and translated into 33 languages (and counting).

It won a record four National Book Awards in 2018 (Book of the Year, Non-Fiction Book of the Year, New Writer of the Year, Zoe Ball Book Club Book of the Year) as well as Sunday Times Humour Book of the Year, Blackwell's Debut Book of the Year, iBooks Book of the Year, two Books Are My Bag Awards including Reader’s Choice, and Esquire Magazine’s Best Biography Prize.

Adam is currently adapting This is Going to Hurt for TV as a major eight-part BBC comedy-drama, produced by Sister Pictures with Adam serving as executive producer.

Twas The Nightshift Before Christmas, Adam's follow up gift title, is packed full of hilarious and heartbreaking stories of those who spend their festive season on the NHS's front line. It was published in October 2019 and went straight in at Number 1 on the Sunday Times Hardback Non-Fiction chart, subsequently alternating between the Number 1 and Number 2 spots throughout the Christmas period and into 2020.

Adam writes extensively for the media, principally for the Sunday Times, where he is a columnist. He is also a hugely experienced television writer and script editor, with credits including Mitchell & Webb, Very British Problems, Mrs Brown's Boys, Crims (co-creator), Mongrels, Up The Women, Bounty Hunters and Child Genius.

He is an “electrifying" (Guardian) live performer, and his sell-out 2018/9 tour of This is Going to Hurt was one of the biggest comedy tours of the year, seen by in excess of 100,000 people, including performances at the Hammersmith Apollo.

He is a frequent voice on Radio 4 and on television is equally at home being sensible (Newsnight, Peston on Sunday, The Big Questions) or less so (The Russell Howard Hour, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown).

For literary event enquiries, please contact Alex Fane at Fane Productions: alex.fane@faneproductions.com

For all other live apperances and corporate enquiries, please contact Lee Martin at Gag Reflex: lee@gagreflex.co.uk

View CV
Download PDF

Painfully funny. The pain and the funniness somehow add up to something entirely good, entirely noble and entirely loveable.

Stephen Fry
on This Is Going To Hurt

As hilarious as it is heartbreaking – and it IS heartbreaking (also hilarious).

Charlie Brooker
on This Is Going To Hurt

Hilarious and heartbreaking - I howled, yelped and occasionally choked with laughter. This book may hurt, but in an important and necessary way.

The Times
on This Is Going To Hurt

CV

Book

Writer 

Writer & Editor 

Television

Writer & Creator 

Crims
6 x 30'
Director Alex Winkler and Ben Kellett
Writer co-written with Dan Swimer
Starring
  • Elis James
  • Kadiff Kirwan
  • Cariad Lloyd
  • Ricky Champ
    •

    Original comedy series about a young man sentenced to two years in a Young Offenders Institution. 

    BBC for BBC Three

    Additional Writer 

    Bounty Hunters
    Creator Freddy Syborn
    Producer Morwenna Gordon & Pippa Brown
    Starring
  • Jack Whitehall & Rosie Perez
    •

    Comedy action & adventure series starring Jack Whitehall.

    Sky One
    Blind Date
    Producer Lee Connolly
    Director Steve Smith

    Classic dating show.

    LWT for Channel 5
    Mrs Brown's Boys
    Producer James Farrell
    Director Ben Kellett
    Starring
  • Brendan O'Carroll
    •

    Comedy about a loud-mouthed Irish matriarch.

    BOC for BBC
    Plebs
    Creator Sam Leifer
    Writer co-written with Dan Swimer
    Starring
  • Tom Rosenthal
  • Ryan Sampson
  • Tom Basden
    •

    Comedy series about a group of friends hanging out in Ancient Rome.

    Rise Films for ITV2
    Flat TV
    Creator Tom Rosenthal & Naz Osmanoglu
    Producer James Farrell
    Director Declan Lowney

    Comedy series about two flatmates trying to entertain themselves.

    BBC Comedy for BBC
    Very British Problems
    Director Lorry Powles
    Starring
  • Julie Walters
  • David Tennant
  • James Corden
    •

    Comedians and celebrities talk about the peculiarities of the British psyche.

    Alaska TV
    That Mitchell and Webb Look
    Producer Gareth Edwards
    Director David Kerr & Ben Gosling-Fuller

    Comedy sketch show, created by and starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb.

    BBC Comedy for BBC
    Our Ex-Wife
    Producer James Farrell
    Director Ben Taylor
    Starring
  • Robert Webb
    •

    Comedy about a divorcee whose new relationship is threatened by his ex-wife. 

    BBC for BBC Two
    Up The Women
    Creator Jessica Hynes
    Producer Emma Strain
    Director Christine Guernon

    Nominated for Best Situation Comedy at the Writers Guild Awards 2014.

    BBC for BBC Two
    Mongrels
    Creator Adam Miller
    Producer Stephen McCrum
    Starring
  • Katy Brand
  • Rufus Jones
    •

    Original BBC puppet comedy series.

    BBC for BBC Three

    Theatre

    Writer & Performer 

    This Is Going To Hurt Live

    Starting with a run at the Edinburgh Fringe, before moving to the Soho Theatre then graduating to a four-month residency at the Garrick Theatre and a UK tour of the country's largest theatres, the absolute sell-out This is Going to Hurt LIVE was one of the most watched comedy shows of the year.

    ***** 'Blissfully brilliant' - Mail on Sunday
    **** 'An artful night of the darkly funny, the impish and the
    impassioned' - The Times

    Writer & Performer & Presenter 

    What Seems to be The Problem with Adam Kay & Mark Watson