Liam Withnail is touring his show all about living with colitis (Picture: Provided)
Comedian Liam Withnail wrote off having 15 stools a day as IBS. This went on for years, and years, without him visiting the doctor.
Things came to a head when he fainted after the London marathon, landing on a restaurant floor and soiling himself in the process. But Liam put the nasty incident down to the toll of the exercise, and still didn’t call the doctor.
Weeks after the marathon, Liam, 34, began experiencing debilitating cramps. It was this that pushed his wife – not him – to reach out for help, worried he never would.
‘Thank god she did,’ says stand-up and podcaster Liam, talking via Zoom amid his comedy tour Chronic Boom, which retells his harrowing (yet hilariously told) journey with ulcerative colitis, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease he was diagnosed with.
He is one of a few people speaking out about this disease, as Made In Chelsea’s Louise Thompson recently unveiled her stoma bag, which she credits as having quite possibly ‘saved her life’ amid her struggle with the condition.
It’s gone under the radar because people are embarrassed to talk about poo, Liam thinks.
His show – Chronic Boom – is sometimes even pretty emotional (Picture: Rebecca Need-Menear)
‘I haven’t said the word poo once in this interview,’ he points out, adding: ‘And that’s what we’re talking about.
‘So I still have a bit of that embarrassment, despite spending the last couple years thinking exclusively about it.’
In radio interviews, Liam is even more hesitant to say the P word. ‘No one wants to hear it,’ he says.
Throughout the years – all without a diagnosis – Liam’s bowel movements got progressively worse, and at one point he was going to the toilet 10 to 15 times a day.
By not seeking help earlier, his condition worsened and Liam ended up spending weeks in hospital on a drip. At one point, it wasn’t looking good and Liam feared he would have to get a colostomy, which results in a stoma bag.
If someone had asked Liam years ago about how many times he goes to the toilet, perhaps it wouldn’t have come to this.
‘I didn’t necessarily know that it was really bad,’ he said. ‘But I was going ten to 15 times a day, you know, and that sounds silly when you say it out loud. But I wasn’t counting either.’
Due to the nature of Liam’s stand-up comedian career, he often spends his days working by himself at home, and going to the toilet so many times was easy for him to brush off as it was a mindless activity. Plus, if you’re going so much, you’re never in there for long. He didn’t think about it, but he was also in denial.
‘If I had really thought about it I would have probably figured out it wasn’t right, but I hadn’t because no one had ever brought it up. I’ve never spoken to anyone about it,’ he says.
Liam also loves cheese and curry – and was probably subconsciously terrified of being told those were (quite literally) off the table for him.
It also didn’t help that he was a man. ‘I think women may find it easier to go to the doctor,’ Liam says.
‘This is maybe a generalisation,’ he adds, continuing: ‘but I think because of stuff like the menstrual cycle, women are more maybe more used to from a young age having to deal with stuff happening to their body and talking to medical professionals.’
Liam is living with the same chronic condition as Made In Chelsea’s Louise Thompson (Picture: Rebecca Need-Menear)
Colitis scares Liam.
‘The words bowel cancer now have a serious mental effect on me, like I see those word and I’ll get terrified because it is a potential. My risk of that is much more now,’ he says.
While he acknowledges stoma bags are a brilliant option for those struggling, it doesn’t make the very real prospect for him any less frightening. ‘I am scared of that,’ he says.
Although his flare ups are the most tangiable result of colitis – as on both occasions they saw him admitted to hospital – day to day, the fear of the short-term also lingers. This has affected his work.
‘We are only gigging on Thursdays through Sundays, so that if I have a flare up or get ill, then we only take out a few dates rather than a whole tour,’ he says.
Liam’s show Chronic Boom – which is a theatrical, emotional journey as much as it is a comedy routine – is split into a series of five-minute segments, documenting each day he spent in hospital during a flare up.
He did this so that if a colitis flare up prevented him from travelling for work and going on tour, he could nip out to his local clubs to keep the ball rolling with short sets which still work.
‘Travelling around 30 days in a row is incredibly stressful and tiring and exhausting – and another big trigger for colitis flares is stress,’ he explained.
‘So you need to try and limit that as much as possible when you’re a touring, standup comedian,’ Liam quipped, his wide eyes exposing the irony of the statement.
Plus, if Liam has one bad poo, it can make him worry a flare up is on the horizon.
‘There is always a pocket of anxiety in the back of your head: that this medicine might not work, or I might try food I haven’t had in a while and that could potentially cause trouble,’ he says.
Late night food is also an issue. It’s impossible to get something healthy at 10pm in the UK after a gig, and at the comedy venues, it’s all about chicken wings, frozen pizza, and ‘cheap cinema food’, he tells me. They are a no-go for Liam.
But while stand up comedy is sometimes a struggle for Liam with his invisible condition, he’s determined to use humour as a way of shining a light on important issues.
‘I think comedy is a really good way to make them really accessible,’ he says, explaining how his first show was about giving up drinking, and his second documented he and his wife’s struggle in getting her a visa so she could live in the UK.
But sometimes it is hard. Not because of on-stage flare-ups – he’s got Dr Showbiz for that (the adrenaline rush that gets him through gigs unscathed) – but because it can be emotional to relive.
‘I haven’t started on a new show yet, but I think maybe it’s going to be a bit more fun,’ Liam jokes.
Liam Withnail is touring Chronic Boom in 2024 across the UK. Get tickets here.
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