Robert Wringham

Robert Wringham
Robert Wringham in 2015
Born	1982 (age 41–42) Dudley, The Midlands, England
Occupation	Author, Comedian
Citizenship	British citizen Resident of Canada
Period	2007–present
Genre	Humor
Notable works	New Escapologist (2007–); A Loose Egg (2014)
Spouse	Samara ​ (m. 2014)​
Website
wringham.co.uk

Robert Wringham (born 28 November 1982) is a British writer, best known for his humor writing and as the editor of New Escapologist magazine. His first collection, A Loose Egg, was shortlisted for the 2015 Leacock Medal. He has also written two histories of alternative comedy and a comic novel.

Wringham is primarily a humorist.^[1][2] In an article for the one-hundredth edition of Canadian Notes and Queries, he expressed a desire to be known as "the waster humorist." He also conveyed a belief in the social value of comic literature and an admiration for the work of Eric Nicol, Susan Juby, Paul Quarrington and Stuart McLean.^[3]

Wringham is the founder of New Escapologist, a lifestyle magazine. The magazine advocates the escape from conventional employment in favor of more creative pursuits.^[4] Some notable contributors have been Alain de Botton, Will Self, Richard Herring, Ewan Morrison, Tom Hodgkinson, Luke Rhinehart and Caitlin Doughty.

In 2012, Go Faster Stripe published Wringham's first non-fiction book You Are Nothing, which told the story of comedy troupe Cluub Zarathustra, whose members included Stewart Lee, Simon Munnery, Kevin Eldon, Julian Barratt, Graham Linehan, Sally Phillips and Johnny Vegas. The book is written from Wringham's outsider perspective and draws on conflicting interviews with cast and audience members.^[5][6][7][8]

2014 saw the publication of A Loose Egg, a collection of short pieces about Wringham's childhood, bachelorhood and early married life. In 2015, it was longlisted and finally shortlisted for the Leacock Medal.^{[9][10][11][12]}

In 2015, Wringham crowdfunded a New Escapologist-related book with publisher Unbound^[13] and the resulting Escape Everything! was released in 2016. A German edition called Ich Bin Raus was published in the same year and attracted considerable media attention.^{[14][15][16][17]} A follow-up title was commissioned called The Good Life for Wage Slaves, published by Heyne Verlag in Germany and independently in the UK. When Unbound republished Escape Everything! as a paperback in 2021, it was retitled I'm Out: How to Make an Exit.^[18]

Returning to Go Faster Stripe in 2021, he wrote a second humour collection called Stern Plastic Owl.^[19] The following year, Go Faster Stripe published Wringham's second volume of comedy history with a book about the Iceman.^[20][21][22]

His first novel, Rub-A-Dub-Dub was published in 2023.^[23][24][25] It won a Saltire Award for Best Cover Design.^[26]

Wringham writes for Joshua Glenn's pop culture website HiLobrow,^[27] and for the Idler magazine where he had a column between 2016 and 2020.^[28][29]

• You Are Nothing (2012) ISBN 978-0-9560901-2-6
• A Loose Egg (2014) ISBN 978-0-9939318-0-2
• Escape Everything! (2016) ISBN 978-1783521333

• I'm Out: How to Make an Exit (retitled paperback edition) (2021) ISBN 9781783529599

• The Good Life for Wage Slaves (2020) ISBN 978-1910631010
• Stern Plastic Owl (2021) ISBN 978-0-9560901-9-5
• Melt It! The Book of the Iceman (2022) ISBN 978-1-8384571-5-0
• Rub-A-Dub-Dub (2023) ISBN 978-1-910631-78-2

His pen name comes from James Hogg's Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.^[30]

In The Good Life for Wage Slaves, Wringham explains that he'd been blogging under his original name since his early twenties but became self-conscious and in need of creative freedom when googling people became a common practice: "I didn't mind exposing my soul to a few strange nerds on the other side of the planet, but a certain dishonesty is required among friends, isn't it?"^[31]

Originally from Dudley, Wringham moved to Glasgow in 2004.^[32] He is also a Resident of Canada.^[33][34]

In 2014 he married his long-term partner Samara, who appears as a foil in some of his writing.^[35]

• Robert Wringham's website
• Interview at the British Comedy Guide
• Robert Wringham at IMDb