David Baddiel on family, Jeremy Corbyn, trolls, and dealing with grief: 'If mad s**t happens to me I make it into material'

From being voted the “World's 6th Sexiest Jew” to becoming the first comedian to sell out Wembley arena, David Baddiel has certainly had his fair share of success. But it’s not just his droll wit which he is famed for. In recent years, the Fantasy Football presenter has moved away from his well-trodden terrain of comedy and has just finished filming his latest series, On The Silk Road.

The Independent spoke to Baddiel about his new series, family life, Jeremy Corbyn, Twitter trolls and the cathartic nature of comedy. Here are some of the highlights:

Making his way from Xi’an in China to Istanbul in Turkey, Baddiel has traversed the most famous trade route in history, unearthing a series of secret historic treasures in far-flung corners of the Far East along the way.

“I’m not a historian and I really didn’t know very much about the Silk Road before they asked me to do it,” he explains. “But I am interested in storytelling and meeting people I wouldn’t meet in any other circumstance and going to new places”.

Working with a small film crew, the north London comedian was forced to do what he does best - improvise. “The way we did it was very guerrilla, we only had a tiny crew, there were only four of us for most of it. We’d meet up with fixers from the local area”.

From mining for gold in Kyrgyzstan to travelling across the desert by camel to being chaperoned by the Chinese secret service, Baddiel struggles to pinpoint one single highlight of the escapade.

But there were a few stand-out moments. “In the Kashgar market, I got taken away by a guy who owned 500 camels and he made me drink camel milk … It’s very thick and creamy but a bit salty, it sounds bad but that’s what it’s like… I did say at one point when I was drinking it - ‘are you sure this is milk?’” he jests.

Another highpoint was an afternoon spent glugging vodka with a local Jewish family in Bukhara in Uzbekistan. “They gave me loads and loads of vodka which I really wasn’t expecting and then I was completely drunk on camera and the next thing I had to do was wrestle in the main square”.

Reflecting on his travels, Baddiel compares his epic trip to a scene in Blade Runner. “There’s a bit in Blade Runner where the android played by Rutger Hauer is dying and he says I’ve seen things you’ve never seen and there were lots of moments which felt like that.”

When Baddiel isn’t travelling the depths of the Far East by camel, he remains very family-focused. Even though filming only lasted twelve weeks, he made sure he came back to Britain every two weeks to spend ten days with his children. He lives with his partner, actress Morwenna Banks, and their two children, Dolly and Ezra. A fervent - but areligious Jew - Baddiel is very keen his children retain their Jewish identity.

“My children are not Jewish theoretically because my partner is Catholic but I do talk to them about that history and we do sometimes do a bit of Jewish stuff,” he explains. “We sometimes do Hanukah and Pesach but we do that purely for cultural, family history reasons, not to praise God”.

Baddiel’s family were some of the last refugees to leave Nazi Germany. Although Baddiel is an adamant atheist, his Jewishness forms a massive part of his cultural identity. So much so that he has often been a key voice against anti-Semitism, spearheading a campaign to stop footy fans using the word “yid”.

“Only Jews can feel as Jewish as they can feel without believing in God,” he reflects. “On my twitter biography it says ‘Jew’ and that is for two reasons. One is to annoy those people who somehow would prefer that not to be there and the other is because I seriously feel even though I am fundamentally atheist that I am very Jewish in lots of ways.” When I ask the man who was voted the “World's 6th Sexiest Jew” why he doesn’t believe in God, he doesn’t plug Dawkins’ brand of devout atheism. “Amongst the many many things that make me not believe in God is the idea that he could be that needy”.

Having always taken an interest in all things political, Baddiel has something of a fondness for Corbyn. “I think it’s interesting to think that we’ve got a proper left wing labour politician,” he says. “My main thing about Corbyn is I think the scaremongering about him by the right wing press is so absurd it makes me want to support Corbyn, even though in some ways I might not”.

But it’s the new Labour leader’s associates, which he feels more ambivalent about. “Some of the people around him I personally wouldn’t trust but I think he himself is a decent man,” he explains.

His life hasn’t been without its peaks and troughs. Baddiel’s mother died from pneumonia two Christmases ago and his 80-year-old father suffers from an extreme form of dementia called Pick’s disease. But it’s this adversity - if you like - which provides the inspiration for much of his comedy. This is particularly true for his most recent stand-up show My family: Not the sitcom.

“It’s about my mother who died Christmas of 2014 but it’s specifically about her very colourful sex life and about my dad's dementia,” he reflects. “They’re both very complicated challenging subject matters but without a doubt I feel every night that it’s cathartic and I feel moved myself by the show and processing - I guess - some kind of grief both about my mum and about my dad's dementia”. For Baddiel, his comedy is undoubtedly therapeutic. In his own words, “It is deliberately trying to work through difficult subject matters through comedy”.

“If mad s**t happens to me I make it into material, that's my only way of getting through things like that. Someone asked me on twitter the other day how do you put up with trolls saying horrible things about you? Why aren't you just rocking in a corner somewhere? And I said well I am upset normally for about a minute and then I think - material”.

David Baddiel’s four-part travelogue series will be shown on Sundays on the Discovery Channel from 21 February