Richard Herring has revealed that he is being treated for blood cancer.

The comedian, who won Taskmaster and also the Taskmaster Champion of Champions showdown, has explained in his daily Substack column that this time it is blood cancer rather than a second case of testicular cancer: "Not ball cancer this time, I can’t afford to lose another one of those (though I will be doing my show “The Male Eunuch” if it does happen)."

This cancer is called hairy cell leukaemia and while it is incurable it is treatable: "the treatment has a tiny chance of killing me, but so has loading the dishwasher, so don’t worry about it."

He was able to see the positive side: "I will of course be using the fact that I have incurable cancer for all it’s worth for the rest of my (hopefully long) life. I can get out of doing other people’s podcasts, any social event I don’t fancy and also set up a justgiving page with me with a sad face, hugging my kids and asking for money to help them once I’m gone. Ha ha ha. It’s not even a scam. It’s all true. I just won’t mention that fact that it’s treatable."

It’s pretty annoying to get another cancer just after the other one is basically at the all-clear stage, not least because I can’t do another show and book about it so soon. But this one has been bubbling under for a few years. They found a few of the cells in my bone marrow about 12 year ago, but it didn’t get any worse and after five years of being tested the doctor said it was probably going to be OK."

He is currently being treated at the Lister hospital in Stevenage –  a hospital he has previously raised money for – and has just started a course of chemo by injection and paid tribute to the NHS staff: "As always I have a mixture of huge admiration for the NHS and their brilliant and funny staff (great jokes and positivity from the nurses today) and continued bewilderment about how inefficiently they seem to run."

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