I would guess I’m near the top age range of people who would adore it – but there will always be outliers. Biography: Josh Widdicombe tours nationwide as one of the UK's finest stand-up comedians as well as co-hosting The Last Leg, and has starred on Have I Got News For You, Live At The Apollo, Taskmaster and numerous other TV comedy shows. And how come no one ever warned Rob or Josh of the sleep-depriving, sick-covering, tear-inducing, snot-wiping, 4am-relationship-straining brutality of it all? Using a different television show of the time as its starting point for each chapter Watching Neighbours Twice a Day… is part-childhood memoir, part-comic history of 90s television and culture. My favourite memory was of Gus Honeybun, the rabbit puppet that read birthday messages on ITV South West in Devon.

It is obvious from the start that he has a strong interest in the nineties and relives it in extreme detail that any fan of nostalgia will love. Comedy and Music run through my veins and I love writing about them both, I adore interviewing acts and always on the lookout for something new! He also hosts one of the country’s most popular podcasts – Lockdown Parenting Hell– with fellow comedian Rob Beckett and Quickly Kevin Will He Score, a podcast about football in the 90s. Not that you need to be a podcast subscriber or listener to find the book entertaining – it totally stands on its own two feet. I would have been able to pick Josh Widdicombe out in a line up for a fair few years – but I only feel like I’ve got to know him intimately since listening to the twice weekly podcast he does with Rob Beckett.stood for ‘Birthday Club’ which was also not entirely accidentally, the name of the short segments of TV, ‘B. Do yourself a favour and give this book a swerve, and maybe pick up a copy of ‘When Saturday Comes’ magazine instead. I'm definitely not his target audience as I was 24 when the '90s started, but nevertheless I enjoyed this and watched the majority of the shows he talks about in this gently amusing book. There are no chapters on Baywatch, Hollyoaks, The Darling Buds of May, Friends, Byker Grove, South Park or Sweet Valley High either. It also includes major TV events such as Princess Diana’s funeral, Euro 96 and the 97 election coverage, while featuring topics such as lad culture, Britpop, eclipse fever, adverts, teletext and the impending Millennium.

I was definitely the target audience, I also LOVED Neighbours in the early 90's to the extent that I owned the Pannini sticker album circa 1994.

You know when your mate does something really impressive, and you look at them with a renewed sense of admiration? The Simpsons and I’m Alan Partridge: These chapters are essentially songs of praise about the brilliance of 1990s TV comedy.

And, happily, Josh’s household was so far behind that his memories of 1990s computer games sit happily with my memories of 1980s ones. Obviously Josh couldn't include everything, but one glaring omission for me was the Doctor Who TV movie on '96. But overall a great feel of the music, politics, sport and most importantly shows that I grew up with. I think this is better than an average sort of biography, and really explores the fundamentals behind a person, and the culture that shapes them. He co-hosts The Last Leg on Channel 4 and Hypothetical on Dave and has appeared on everything from Have I Got News For You to A League of Their Own and Blankety Blank .I felt a bit silly when I realised that Widdicombe is British (I’d assumed Australian, given the title, clearly forgetting that the Brits love Neighbours more than we do), which caused some relatability problems. It reminded me of times at university watching Gladiators and Blind Date before heading to the bar on a Saturday night, and the double editions of Neighbours. This started during the pandemic as ‘Lockdown Parenting Hell’ and has subsequently been rebranded ‘Parenting Hell’. We don't often get a chance to talk about the impacts of television (apart from news articles about the 'dangers'), so this was a refreshing read - a television equivalent of Acaster's "Perfect Sound Whatever". the newly-revived Blankety Blank and, as always, alongside Adam Hills and Alex Brooker on Channel 4’s Friday night hit, The Last Leg.

Using a different television show of the time as its starting point for each chapter, this title is part-childhood memoir, part-comic history of 90s television and culture. Using a different television show of the time as its starting point for each chapter Watching Neighbours Twice a Day. And that’s without me even checking properly: goodness knows how many times he’s cropped up on Dave in that time, perhaps on a repeat of his own panel show, Hypothetical or on an old episode of Taskmaster. I also think the book makes an excellent point about the importance of television in the pre-digital era.I read all the way to the end of the acknowledgements (my neck is stiffer than Beckett’s – another podcast reference, I am such a fangirl) and the part written to Josh’s wife and kids made me cry! From only having four people in his year at school, to living in a family home where they didn't just not bother to lock the front door, they didn't even have a key. It is so well observed and frequently had me laughing out loud (and then having to explain to my husband what I’d found so funny). Behind his front door are a plethora of prodigiously talented performers, all ready and eager to entertain. Josh Widdecombe seems like a thoroughly decent bloke and all-round ‘good egg’, so I feel slightly sheepish having to slate his book.