‘If this podcast has given people joy, then I’m glad’

was, so it was a lot to take in,’ says Matt, a postman, of the moment Jo told him. ‘I’m just not clued up. I’m just not the kind of guy to be savvy with all the mod cons and stuff.’

In the big reveal Jo, armed with printouts of lovely things fans had written about him, tells her boyfriend everything – and naturally, she recorded the moment to share with fans of the podcast.

It’s as heart-warming as it is funny, with Jo, who lives with Matt in Tuxford, Nottinghamshire, deciding to tell him because it was coming up to two years of furtive recording on her phone, and it simply felt right.

‘For at least an hour he didn’t really understand what I was telling him,’ Jo recalls. ‘He was shell-shocked but he was pleased because I immediately showed him the hundreds of great comments about him.’

It began to dawn on him just how big ISRMB had got.

‘I had all these messages piling in on all the sociable platforms,’ he says, admitting he was in tears after Jo told him.

The messages included ‘Jo’s boyfriend is an absolute comedy legend’ and ‘I laughed so hard I almost fell off the treadmill’.

Each episode is named after a soundbite from Matt, including gems like ‘Who knows the Spanish word for tortoise’, ‘I’m not a fashion pundit’, ‘Why do they say YOLO?’, ‘I got Lady Gaga and Nickelback mixed up’ and ‘I don’t know any names of women that are good looking’.

Podcasts are big business, with around 7.1 million (or one in eight) people in the UK now listening in each week, according to Ofcom. As a result, ad revenues for successful podcasts can be massive and, over time, production values become more polished and with that contributor performance becomes self-conscious. Jo’s not at that point yet and while ISRMB does make a small amount from advertising, she says ‘we need to be at [other comedy podcast] My Dad Wrote A Porno level before making real money, I think.’

But what’s so refreshing about ISRMB is that is truly, genuinely real and unrehearsed. Well, you can’t rehearse if you don’t know you’re performing, can you?

What Jo – who met Matt on the Plenty Of Fish dating site in 2015 – has created with producer Paul Iliffe is raw, doesn’t take itself too seriously but is actually very clever.

Having had a long career in radio meant Jo knew what listeners like and she originally conceived the podcast simply because she found Matt so funny.

And he is funny. Really, really funny in a down-to-earth, everyday slightly silly way. That said, Matt doesn’t consider himself especially amusing.

‘It blows your mind that 1.4 million people have listened to a daft Brummie talking,’ he says, before admitting that ‘when I’ve gone back and listened – I’ve laughed at my own jokes!’

A former squaddie, Matt also recalls being bi told ld that h he h lifted lif d morale l among the h other soldiers. And this, he says, is what he is most pleased to hear the podcast appears to have done.

‘People have said I’m a legend! And if this has brought people joy, then I’m glad.’

Famous fans include Jeremy Vine and Gogglebox’s Sid Siddiqui, while there are listeners all over the world.

Jo believes that the secret to the podcast’s success is more than about Matt’s funny bone but also his authenticity.

‘There’s not a lot of podcasts or reality TV where people are being real any more,’ says Jo. ‘They are trying to be something that they are not. Because Matt has no idea it’s being recorded, it’s real. That’s the key.’

Jo admits that her morals have been called into question, with critics claiming she shouldn’t have put Matt’s life out into the public without his knowledge.