Interview: Comedy and quizzing the life for TV Chaser Paul 'the Sinnerman' Sinha

Paul Sinha is a veteran of the British comedy scene, having started out in 1995 alongside the likes of Micky Flanagan, as well as being one of Britain's top quizzers and an award-winning star of ITV's the Chase.

The 52-year-old said he considers himself an entertainer, with the two lives he lives intertwining at times and helping him in both areas.

He said: "I'm an entertainer, by which I mean I do both, and I only get paid to quiz within the entertainment industry, I don't win any prize money, so I'm a professional quizzer in that I do it for entertainment.

"However, the two areas do intertwine at times as when I talk about The Chase and my life as a quizzer on stage, I get laughs and being a comedian helps me with my quizzes, so they both exist together."

Paul became a member of the Chase in 2011 after 'The Beast' Mark Labbett sent him a message to say that the show was looking for a fourth chaser and he'd been recommended by them, then successfully completed the audition to get the role.

It has made him a recognised face on TV and in public, with more people now knowing him for his role on the Chase as the Sinnerman, replete with white suit.

He said it took him a while to get used to the TV world, having previously only appeared on shows such as the Stand Up show on BBC, but it has become something he is very comfortable with.

He said: "I'd been in the world of serious quizzing for around two years when Mark Labbett got in touch on Facebook to tell me about it, so I applied for it with an email and some credentials.

"They invited me for an audition and I did a few and got the role, so it was very much like a job interview and while in my first series, I maybe tried too hard to be funny, I then began to focus on the questions and the joke came afterwards.

"In terms of the white suit, I didn't say anything that would get in the way of getting the job as I'm very much a yes person when it comes to TV."

The world of TV quizzing and sell-out shows at the Edinburgh Festival must have seemed a world away for Paul when he was training to be a doctor at St George's Hospital medical school in the early 1990s.

He was working as a general practitioner in 1995 when he decided to give stand-up comedy a proper go, starting out with a set he recently rehashed at the Fitz of Laughter show at Katie Fitzgerald's in Stourbridge.

The set was a tour-de-force of innuendo, jokes about his sexuality (he describes himself as a British-Asian, openly gay, qualified doctor) and, as he put it, anything he thought would make people laugh.

He said he didn't have an idea of what he wanted to do with stand-up comedy, but wanted to say he'd done it.

He said: "I was just someone who wrote jokes and told those jokes on stage and I had no ambitions, no plan and no direction and just wanted to be able to tell people that I'd tried my hand at stand-up, something a lot of people had when I started out.

"The first set was just anything that would make people laugh and had, if I'm honest, a lot of rough jokes from an ethical point of view, but back then, it was about making a name for yourself.

"Also, there was no Twitter and no one reviewing what you did and it was live in the purest sense as there was no imprint left from your gig and was a very different time."

Paul said that the scene back then was "packed" and even people on the bottom rung of the ladder could get five or six shows per week. He said that his future progression was dictated by whether he had enough bad shows in a row, something he said didn't happen.

He said: "Looking back, if I had died on stage three times in a row, I'd have probably given up, but it only seemed to happen twice in a row, then I'd have a good show and that kept me moving along.

"I would say to younger comedians to take your time and learn your craft, as learning your craft takes time and while some people might be unnaturally brilliant at writing and performing, normal people take time to get good."

Paul's life also took a turn in 2019 when he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, but he said that with the support of his husband Oliver and his family, he has been dealing with the disease through treatment and medication.

The diagnosis and the subsequent fallout from it has formed a large part of his stand-up shows, with Paul making some very moving, but also very funny, references to what the disease has done to him and how he deals with it.

This includes regularly running quizzes on Facebook for friends and ardent quizzers alike, as well as videos of him reciting the periodic table while spinning a hula hoop.

He said that he deals with the disease and lives his life the way he wants to.

He said: "The important thing is that no matter what life throws at you, it's your job to just go on and maximise what life has thrown at me."