Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999

James Acaster strolls onto the stage in sunglasses, a palm tree bomber jacket, and headphones, immediately signaling that the whimsical, buttoned-up persona from his previous Netflix release is gone. This is a louder, more aggressive, and deeply personal set where he drops his usual clean delivery to actively antagonize his more mainstream panel-show fans. He spends over two hours detailing a spectacular personal collapse, structuring the performance around a comparison between 1999, the best year of his life, and 2017, the absolute worst.

Filmed at EartH in Hackney, London, on December 17, 2019, the show was released via a global live stream on the exact same date a year later. It catalogs a series of humiliations, including being dumped by his girlfriend for Rowan Atkinson, getting dropped by his agent, and enduring a mental breakdown during a celebrity edition of The Great British Bake Off that ended with a call to the Samaritans helpline. He also tackles wider targets, including a viral segment mocking comfortable comedians who punch down at transgender people. The show won the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Award and was widely praised for its intricate narrative structure.