LOVE, SIMON

DEAR ME, YOU’RE DOING JUST FINE.

FOR SIMON AMSTELL, the journey to finding calm began when he reached deep inside himself to release decades of shame and sexual repression. Quite literally, he fingered his bumhole. Granted, there’s more context to that story, but(t) we’ll come back to that.

It wasn’t the first time Simon had sought alternative therapies to clear his clouded mind, and it certainly wasn’t his first adventure into the Peruvian jungle in search of spiritual awakening. This most recent trip was sparked by his impending 40th birthday.

“It’s about getting older, and that being a major problem in this culture,” says Simon, when we meet for the interview in a small independent coffee shop in Kentish Town as he prepares for the second leg of his new show, Spirit Hole. “Even though people would say ‘You don’t look 40’, I was aware that sounded like a compliment. But what that meant was, ‘You don’t look 40 now, but when you do, that will be disgusting,’ because we’re in this sick culture where we’re sold anti-ageing products.

“If there was just a bit more honesty, the adverts would say, ‘Hey, we know that you’re terrified no one’s going to want to touch or look at you, but apply this serum daily and after a period of time you’ll die.’” In some parallel universe, Simon’s dream of a career in advertising is still yet to take off.

The biggest challenge Simon encountered was embracing ageing as an ‘adult man’. When he suggested to a friend that he might grow