Adam Kay is a writer and comedian
Multi-award-winning, multi-million-copy bestselling author of This is Going to Hurt & Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas, and kids' book Kay's Anatomy, and editor of Dear NHS.
Tickets for THIS GOING TO HURT live
Biography: writing
Books
Adam's first book, This is Going to Hurt, revisiting his former career as a junior doctor, has spent over a year at number one in the Sunday Times bestseller list. It was the bestselling non-fiction title of the decade, it is the bestselling non-fiction e-book of all time, and has sold over 2.5 million copies. This is Going to Hurt has been translated into 37 languages and achieved number one bestseller status internationally.
Winner of a record four National Book Awards (Book of the Year, Non-Fiction Book of the Year, New Writer of the Year, Zoe Ball Book Club Book of the Year), Blackwell's Debut Book of the Year, Sunday Times Humour Book of the Year, iBooks Book of the Year, Esquire Book of the Year, Books Are My Bag Readers' Award and Books Are My Bag Non-Fiction Prize.
Adam's second book Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas was published by Picador in October 2019, taking a peek behind the blue curtain at Christmastime. It was an instant Sunday Times number one bestseller, selling over 500,000 copies in under three months and making Adam the first author to have simultaneous number ones for hardback and paperback non-fiction titles.
Dear NHS: 100 Stories to Say Thank You, edited by Adam, was published by Trapeze in July 2020. It collected together stories from famous contributors, with all profits donated to NHS Charities Together and The Lullaby Trust and was an instant Sunday Times number one bestseller. It has raised over £250,000 for charity.
His first children's book, Kay's Anatomy, was published by Puffin in October 2020 - it was a Sunday Times number one bestseller, and became the fastest selling childrens' non-fiction book of the decade.
Other things
Adam is adapting This is Going to Hurt as a major comedy-drama for the BBC and AMC, starring Ben Whishaw.
He has numerous credits as a writer and script editor for TV and film, and is a columnist for the Sunday Times.
Adam is a proud patron of The Lullaby Trust.
Biography: performing
Live
As an award-winning live performer, Adam has sold out multiple Edinburgh Fringe runs, West End seasons and UK and international tours. His current tour of This is Going to Hurt has been seen by over 200,000 people.
For live performances and corporate events please contact lee@gagreflex.co.uk - numerous testimonials available on request (including, strangely, from Prince Harry's 30th birthday).
TV
A frequent face on television, Adam is equally at home being sensible (Newsnight, Peston) or less so (The Jonathan Ross Show, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown).
Quotes
What people have said
"Painfully funny. The pain and the funniness somehow add up to something entirely good, entirely noble and entirely loveable"
Stephen Fry
"As hilarious as it is heartbreaking – and it IS heartbreaking (also hilarious)"Charlie Brooker
"Laugh-out-loud funny and heartbreakingly sad. It’s wonderful"
Jonathan Ross
"A blisteringly funny account shot through with harrowing detail, many pertinent truths and the humanity we all hope doctors conceal behind their unflappable exteriors"
Jo Brand
"Insightful, very funny, and indecently readable"
Louis Theroux
"It’s a rare book that can make me both cry and laugh. This Is Going to Hurt is that book"
Ian Rankin
"This is a brilliant book"
Russell Howard
"Absolutely adored it. Brilliant"
Jack Whitehall
"Horrifyingly hilarious and hilariously horrifying"Danny Wallace
"Bloody funny"Minnie Driver
"At once hilarious and shocking, moving and irreverent, This Is Going to Hurt is a book that demands to be read."
Maggie O’Farrell
"As a hypochondriac I was worried about reading Adam Kay’s book. Luckily it’s incredibly funny – so funny, in fact, that it gave me a hernia from laughing"Joe Lycett
"Superb. Unusual and funny and sad"Pam Ayres
"By turns witty, gruesome, alarming, and touching. Always illuminating and searingly honest"
Jonathan Dimbleby
"Brilliant"
Mark Haddon
What the press have said
"Hilarious and heartbreaking - I howled, yelped and occasionally choked with laughter. This book may hurt, but in an important and necessary way"
The Times
"A heartening, laugh-out-loud confessional on the indignities and quiet joys of being a junior doctor. Kay’s warts-and-all account will not only bring plenty of laughs but also delivers a moving report from the NHS’s embattled frontline"
Financial Times
"Scalpel-sharp humour and searing insight"
The Sun
"So clinically funny and politically important for supporters of the NHS that it should be given out on prescription."
Guardian
"We know that junior doctors have it rough. But it takes Kay’s account of his 97-hour-week struggle to see just how rough. There are many hilariously gruesome anecdotes in this book. Some are just hilarious."
Sunday Times
"The humour is unflinching in its darkness, yet I did laugh. A lot. Kay is a skilful, muscular writer, his narrative swinging from laugh-out-loud anecdotes to tales of sheer horror."
Independent
"Adam Kay writes with scalpel-sharp wit - a genital-warts-and-all account of what life is really like for junior doctors. Witty, wise and frequently moving, This Is Going To Hurt should be required reading for anyone who wants to be a doctor. And, frankly, anyone who might expect to cross a hospital’s threshold"
Mail on Sunday
"If you read one book this year, make it Adam Kay’s hilarious, horrifying, heartbreaking insight into the life of a junior doctor . . . an eye-opening and brutally funny insight into the appalling pressure upon the NHS. What a terrible loss Adam Kay is to the medical profession. But what a tremendous gain for your bookshelf"
Daily Express
"It is a truly laudable book, hilarious, moving and caustic. Kay’s book is vital and timely. It should be required reading for anyone who ever has any political or financial responsibility for our health services"
Scotsman
"Blisteringly funny, politically enraging and often heartbreaking"
Sunday Express
Contact
Please contact Lee Martin for live/corporate enquiries
lee@gagreflex.co.uk
0161 205 8739
Please contact Cathryn Summerhayes for writing enquiries (books/journalism)
cathryn.summerhayes@curtisbrown.co.uk
020 7393 4400
Please contact Jess Cooper for writing enquiries (TV/film/stage)
jessica.cooper@curtisbrown.co.uk
020 7393 4400
Please contact One Take Voices for voiceover enquiries
hello@onetakevoices.com
020 7175 2175
Please contact Dusty Miller for press enquiries
dustymillerPR@gmail.com
07955 904 482
If your enquiry somehow doesn't fit into any of those categories, please contact
emma@terribleproductions.co.ukMailing list
Keep up to date with gigs and news. Enjoy how extravagantly we flout the GDPR laws.
© Adam Kay 2017-21
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