"I WANTED to talk some more about the God thing," the comedian Frank Skinner announced on Tuesday night's episode of Free Thinking on Radio 3. Appropriately enough for the week leading up to Easter, the programme had a religious theme, with Laurence Scott also talking to novelists Jeet Thayil and Yaa Gyasi about faith and fiction.

But his most interesting conversation, especially for the atheists amongst us (my hand is up), was with Skinner, whose new book A Comedian's Prayer Book has just been published.

Skinner is, he admits, a rarity in the field of comedy, a practicing believer and part of the challenge of that is finding a language to talk about his beliefs, he explained. And inevitably, humour is part of that language.

Religion could do with more, he reckons. "It's a very noticeable omission in the New Testament, for example, that there aren't any jokes.

"I think it is a humanising thing, comedy. And the whole idea of God becoming man, becoming human ... I think part of being human is jokes."

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Humour, he adds, is a way of not just sugar-coating discussions about a belief system but can also provide a ramp towards some of faith's more difficult questions. Like, in heaven, should you expect to meet all your loved ones? What if some of them don't make it?

"Are you okay just being there or are you going to fret about those who are elsewhere?" he wonders. "And that sounds like a slightly facetious premise, but I think if you believe in these things it's quite a big question that could do with a bit of thought."

Someone commission a whole series please.

Listen Out For: Charlie Higson and Friends, Scala Radio, tomorrow, 6pm. Charlie Higson begins a new series talking to fellow comedians about their favourite classical music. Paul Whitehouse is his first guest.