James William Acaster (; born 9 January 1985) is an English comedian, writer, presenter and musician. As well as appearances on panel shows, he is known for the stand-up specials Repertoire, co-hosting the food podcast Off Menu and co-presenting the panel show Hypothetical. He has won four Chortle Awards. After attempting to pursue a music career as a drummer, Acaster began performing stand-up comedy in 2008. He drew acclaim for his stand-up shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where he has been nominated for Best Comedy Show five times. Four of his Fringe performances were adapted into the serialised Netflix specials Repertoire: "Recognise", "Represent", "Reset" and "Recap". His more recent special Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999 (2019) won a Melbourne International Comedy Festival Award. As a presenter, Acaster began the food podcast Off Menu with Ed Gamble in 2018, and has co-hosted four series of the Dave panel show Hypothetical from 2019 onwards. He has appeared as a guest on panel shows including Taskmaster, The Big Fat Quiz of the Year, Would I Lie to You?, 8 out of 10 Cats and Mock the Week. Acaster's radio appearances on Widdicombe's XFM show led to a recurring segment called Classic Scrapes, in which he shared mistakes that got him into unfortunate circumstances. He developed this into a book, James Acaster's Classic Scrapes (2017), which made The Sunday Times Bestseller List. Acaster's second book, Perfect Sound Whatever (2019), also became a Sunday Times Bestseller; it follows Acaster's life in 2017 via reviews of albums that were released in 2016. A tie-in podcast, James Acaster's Perfect Sounds, aired on BBC Sounds. His third book, James Acaster's Guide to Quitting Social Media: Being the Best YOU You Can Be and Saving Yourself from Loneliness: Vol. 1, was released in August 2022, becoming his third Sunday Times Best Seller. Early life James William Acaster was born in Kettering on 9 January 1985. He attended Montagu Secondary School and studied music at Northampton College. He later worked as a teaching assistant in a school for autistic children, using his free time to begin performing stand-up comedy. Acaster played the drums in various bands around his hometown prior to his comedy career, including The Wow! Scenario and the Capri-Sun Quartet. As a member of the latter, he used the stage name Sir William Strawberry. After The Wow! Scenario broke up, he pursued comedy while "deciding what [he]