N ish Kumar – mop of curly hair, Jimi Hendrix T-shirt, fancy coffee shop cookie in hand – is sitting centimetres away from me in a meeting room in his publicist’s offices in Soho, central London. Nevertheless, another comedian is drawing the eye. On the wall is a massive poster promoting Prime Video’s Last One Laughing UK – and looming over us from the centre of the frame is the show’s host, Jimmy Carr.

This feels, let’s just say, a tad ironic. In Kumar’s last standup show, he recalled the time he furiously confronted Carr about his decision to appear on manosphere influencer Jordan Peterson’s podcast.…