Comedian Jason Manford has described a recent “terrifying” road ordeal that saw him chased down a motorway for around 80 miles by an enraged fellow motorist.
Jason detailed the incident on his Absolute Radio show, revealing that after a gig in Hayling Island, near Portsmouth, his driver began their trip home when they came across a man who had blocked the road and was flashing his hazard lights.
The man asked Jason and Lionel, his driver, if they could help him by providing a jump-lead, but they told him they didn’t have any, and continued their drive home.
However, after 10 minutes, Jason noticed something odd, when the man in question suddenly appeared at their side in his car.
“He’s shouting out the window, ‘Why didn’t you have any jump-leads?’ and ’What are you doing here, on the island? This is my town,” Jason explained. “I thought, ‘We’re going to wake up in a wicker man here’.
“He follows us, driving dangerously, undercutting us on the A3, getting in front and braking suddenly. He was coming up behind us, flashing us, beeping us, shouting, and swerving in the road in front of us. It was a bit terrifying.”
After initially losing him, Jason and Lionel were confronted with the same furious man 15 minutes later, prompting the comedian to question whether he’d stumbled into a horror film, branding the “road rage” experience “the weirdest of my life”.
“A police officer came out and they circled the block and found his car just abandoned, nobody in it,” he added.
“It was registered to Hayling Island as well so he’d come all that way. They know everything about him.”
Jason is best known for his stand-up work, appearing on shows like 8 Out Of 10 Cats and Sunday Night At The Palladium.
In 2017, though, his career took a rather different turn, when he followed in the footsteps of Bradley Walsh and Alexander Armstrong and released a covers album.