Harry Hill went to the pub between operations when he was a doctor
Before he became a well-known comedian, Harry Hill used to work as a doctor. Speaking on Kathy Burke's podcast Where There's A Will, There's A Wake, has has now admitted he would go to the pub during his hospital shifts.
He explained: "When I was a doctor, I used to be on call... and this is a terrible thing: We'd be on call, this is at Kingston Hospital, and there was a pub, which was within the range of the bleep. And so, we'd get all the patients, all sorted out for their operations, and there would be like an hour or something while we were waiting for them to get done. And then we would go to the pub, on the bleep, and if I got bleeped, I would then have to go to the payphone in the pub and say, 'Oh, it's Doctor Hill here. Can you put me through to Byron Ward?' or whatever it was, and she'd say, 'yeah, you've got to come quickly because so and so's not breathing'. And then I'd have to run."
Asked by the host about nearly having to go back to the medical profession during the pandemic, Hill said: "It was scary for me. I mean, imagine if you woke up and saw my face at the Nightingale Hospital. That's where they wanted me to start work, for God's sake, the Excel Nightingale Hospital. That's when you know that the country's in trouble, when you wake up and you see Harry Hill bent over your bed, asking you how you're feeling."
Where There's A Will, There's A Wake is focused around the question "If you could plan your perfect death, what would you do?"
Hill is currently promoting his tour Harry Hill: New Bits & Greatest Hits, which will run from February to September 2025.
Asked by Burke, "If you were to peg it, during the middle of your tour, who do you think would replace you?", Hill said: "Well, it would have to be someone who looked like me. So, Gregg Wallace? 'Hello! It's Gregg Wallace here! Chicken liver, carrots, onions, everyone's talking about casseroles'! He could get it, he could probably sell it. Heston Blumenthal, possibly... I'm thinking of bald guys with glasses."
The full episode of Where There's A Will, There's A Wake can be heard on all major podcast platforms, including iTunes