Jimmy Carr recalls how childhood battle with meningitis inspired his first joke

Jimmy Carr has revealed how his childhood battle with meningitis led him to make his mother laugh for the first time.

The stand-up comedian, 51, contracted the disease when he was three years old.

Appearing on today’s (16 April) episode of the podcast Carr said: “‘You’ve got to be cruel to be kind’… I think that is the first thing I ever said that my mother thought was funny.”