Jack Dee
Jack Dee in 2007
Born	(1961-09-24) 24 September 1961 (age 50) Bromley, Kent, England
Medium	Stand-up, television, radio
Nationality	British
Years active	1986–present
Genres	Deadpan, Observational comedy
Subject(s)	Everyday life, Family, Marriage, Human interaction, Current events
Influences	Larry David
Influenced	Jack Whitehall
Spouse	Susan Jane Hetherington (m. 1989–present)
Notable works and roles	The Jack Dee Show (1992–94) Just For Laughs (1992) 'Art' (1998) Jack Dee: Live at the Apollo (2004–06) Lead Balloon (2006–2011)
British Comedy Awards
Best Stage Newcomer 1991 Best Standup Comedian 1997

James Andrew Innes "Jack" Dee (born 24 September 1961) is an English stand-up comedian, actor and writer known for his sarcastic, witty, and deadpan humour. He won Celebrity Big Brother 2001.

Early life[link]

Dee was the youngest of three children born to Rosemary A. (née Stamper) and Geoffrey T. Dee, after Joanna Innes Dee & David Simon Innes Dee. Jack Dee was born in Bromley, Kent^[1] and grew up in nearby Petts Wood^[2] before moving with his family to Winchester when he was young. His father, Geoffrey, was a printer and his mother, Rosemary, was the daughter of two unsuccessful repertory actors, Henry Lionel Pope "Lionel" Stamper (1906–1985) & Edna May Howard Innes (1904–1969) (and the great-niece of Charles William Stamper, motor engineer to King Edward VII).^[3]

Education[link]

Dee was educated at both independent and state schools. His first school was The Pilgrims' School, a junior independent school in Winchester, followed by the state Montgomery of Alamein School for his secondary education, for some time he attended Frensham Heights School. He took his A-levels at Peter Symonds' College, and left with a D and an F grade. Following this, he planned to attend drama college, but his plans were scuppered when his mother persuaded him to get a vocation, and so he entered the catering industry and became a waiter.^[4]

Life and career[link]

In his twenties, Dee worked at the Ritz and started drinking heavily. He attended church and attempted to become a priest. After he realised that wasn't for him he gave that up, he never quit drinking, although he would later describe his condition as "alcohol abuse" rather than alcoholism, which was diagnosed at the time.^[5] Since then he has advertised John Smith's Bitter.

Career[link]

Dee's first public act was an open-mic gig in 1986 at the Comedy Store, which he went to one evening after work.^[6] He was encouraged to write additional material and to tour the circuit. Since the 1990s he has performed sell-out acts at many high-profile venues (including the London Palladium and the Hammersmith Apollo). After he scooped the British Comedy Award for Best Stage Newcomer in 1991, Dee was offered his own show; The Jack Dee Show first went out on Channel 4 in February 1992, bringing him to a wider audience. His combination of stand-up routines on television continued with Jack Dee's Saturday Night on ITV, Jack Dee's Happy Hour in 1997 and later Jack Dee Live at the Apollo in 2004 on BBC One.

Aside from his successful stand-up career, Dee has played starring roles and guest appearances in television series. He played the part of Doug Digby in the Grimleys pilot (1997) before the role was recast for the series, and made guest appearances on such programmes as Silent Witness, Dalziel and Pascoe and Jonathan Creek.

In 2001, he won Celebrity Big Brother (then linked to fundraising for Comic Relief). During evictions, he dressed up in a tweed jacket and cap and held his packed suitcase, hoping to be voted out. During the eviction of another housemate he briefly absconded to sneak a quick kiss with his wife. He also escaped for several hours at night-time. He has subsequently said that he dislikes the treatment of the housemates by the show and its producers, and has refused all permission for any of the clips to be shown again.^[7]

In 2004 he played the role of Steven Sharples MP the self-styled 'Deputy Home Secretary' alongside Warren Clarke and Dervla Kirwan in The Deputy. Dee's performance was praised, though the film itself received a lukewarm response.^[8] Later that year he starred in another one-off drama, Tunnel of Love. He was the celebrity advocate in Britain's Best Sitcom for Fawlty Towers and presented an hour-long documentary about the series.

In 2005 he co-hosted Comic Aid, a one-off gathering of comedians that aimed to raise money for the Asian Tsunami Appeal. In May of the same year he appeared on the "Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car" segment of the BBC Two series Top Gear, achieving a lap time of 1:53.5 (52nd on the Suzuki Liana leader board). His most recent series Lead Balloon, which he also co-wrote, began on BBC Four on 4 October 2006. Described as "Britain's answer to Curb Your Enthusiasm",^[9] Lead Balloon sees Dee play the semi-biographical role of Rick Spleen. A second series of eight episodes was commissioned and was broadcast on BBC Two in 2007, with a third series debuting on Thursday 13 November 2008. A fourth series has just finished being shown on the BBC as of the 5th July.^[10] He also starred as Harry in the 2005 film Short Order.

Dee hosts the radio panel show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, and is a frequent guest on QI and Have I Got News for You, which he has guest-presented ten times, and he hosts segments of the BBC's biennial Comic Relief telethon. He starred in advertisements for John Smith's Bitter in the 1990s, becoming known as "the midget with the widget".

He made his stage debut in 1998, playing Yvan in Yasmina Reza's Olivier award-winning 'Art'. He later returned as Serge for a 13-week run at the request of the director.^[2]

In 2008, Dee took part in the 15th anniversary special of Shooting Stars where he replaced Will Self as captain of Team A. The show aired on 30 December 2008 on BBC2.

Dee returned as team captain in series 6 of Shooting Stars on 26 August 2009, and again for the 7th series.

In February 2009, it was announced that Dee would be one of a trio of hosts to replace Humphrey Lyttelton for the summer series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue (the others being Stephen Fry and Rob Brydon).^[11] Dee subsequently became the permanent host from the 52nd series onwards.^[12]

Over Christmas 2009, Dee played the role of John Tweedledum in The News at Bedtime.

In 2010, Dee took part in Channel 4's Comedy Gala, a benefit show held in aid of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, filmed live at the O2 Arena in London on 30 March.

Personal life[link]

Dee met Susan Jane "Jane" Hetherington, in 1986 when he was working as a waiter in Fulham and she was a receptionist at a nearby hotel.^[13] They married in Winchester, Hampshire, in 1989.^[14] Together they have four children^[14]: Hannah Jane Innes (born 1992), Sophie Jane Innes (born late 1994) and twins, Frederic 'Freddy' Leonardo Innes and Charles Leonardo Innes 'Charlie' (born 1998). The family lives in Wandsworth.

Dee suffered from Depression, and he has claimed that his work is the best therapy for his condition, saying "if you have the impulse to be creative, you ignore it at your peril".^[15]

He abused alcohol heavily in the 1980s. Following his appearance on Celebrity Big Brother he had a relapse, though did not attend AA meetings because he did not want paparazzi photographing him leaving the meetings.^[16]

In 2007, the Daily Express reported that he was in negotiations with publishers to release his autobiography.^[17] He signed with Doubleday in 2008 and the book, Thanks For Nothing: The Jack Dee Memoirs, was released in October 2009, along with an audiobook of the same title which he narrates.^[18] According to Dee, "it's really the story of how I got into comedy... It's kind of an autobiography but isn't, as it stops about 25 years ago. It goes right up to the first time I do stand up."^[19]

In February 2009 Dee and several other entertainers wrote an open letter to The Times supporting Bahá'í leaders then on trial in Iran.^[20]

Dee is also a director of Open Mike Productions, which produces shows for television and radio.

Awards and nominations[link]

Stand-up VHS & DVDs[link]

• Live at the Duke of York's Theatre (1992)
• Live at the London Palladium (10 October 1994)
• Live in London (10 November 1997)
• Live and Uncut (5 November 2001)
• Live At The Apollo (18 November 2002)
• Live Again (14 November 2005)

See also[link]

• Lead Balloon

Notes and references[link]

External links[link]

• Jack Dee on Twitter
• Jack Dee at Off The Kerb Productions
• Jack Dee – the website for his autobiography, Thanks for Nothing
• Jack Dee at BBC Online Guide to Comedy
• Jack Dee at the British Film Institute
• Jack Dee at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
• Jack Dee at the Internet Movie Database
• Johnston, Jenny (16 October 2009). "Don't tell me to cheer up! Jack Dee on being a borderline alcoholic and living with depression". London: Daily Mail. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1220330/Dont-tell-cheer-Jack-Dee-borderline-alcoholic-living-depression.html. 

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Marcus Brigstocke
Marcus Brigstocke during The Early Edition
Born	(1973-05-08) 8 May 1973 (age 39) Guildford, Surrey, England[1]
Medium	Television, Radio, Stand up
Nationality	British
Genres	Satire
Subject(s)	Politics
Spouse	Sophie Prideaux (2001-Present)
Notable works and roles	Argumental Love Actually

Marcus Alexander Brigstocke (born 8 May 1973) is an English comedian, actor and satirist who has worked extensively in stand-up comedy, television, radio and in 2010-2011 musical theatre. He is particularly associated with the 6.30pm comedy slot on BBC Radio 4, having frequently appeared on several of its shows. Brigstocke also played a cameo role in Richard Curtis's romantic comedy Love Actually as Mike, a radio DJ who interviews Billy Mack (played by Bill Nighy).

Early life[link]

In childhood, Brigstocke attended St. Edmunds School in Hindhead, Surrey.^[2] In Chichester he went to Westbourne House School^{[citation needed]} before going onto King's Bruton School in Somerset. He also attended Netherton Hall School,^{[citation needed]} a boarding school for children, situated in Farway, Devon. He studied Drama at the University of Bristol,^[2] however he did not complete his degree.

Comedy career[link]

Many of the central themes of Brigstocke's work were first addressed during his time as a student at the University of Bristol. While at Bristol he often performed in the comedy trio Club Seals, which later made the transition to TV in the series of short programmes We Are History.

With a successful radio career including The Now Show with Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis The Now Show also provided an outlet for his fierce dislike of David Blaine, referring to Blaine himself as a "Git Wizard", and his "Above The Below" stunt as Freakdangle. Brigstocke hailed the failure of Blaine's "Drowned Alive" as proof that Blaine is "not special; not magic; just a moistened git". He is increasingly enjoying mainstream success, recently having appeared on such broadly popular TV shows such as Have I Got News for You and Jack Dee's Live at the Apollo series.

Brigstocke plays an arts journalist named Marcus in the Neil Gaiman film A Short Film About John Bolton, and a radio DJ in the Richard Curtis film Love Actually. On 9 April 2006, Brigstocke appeared in BBC Radio 4's Classic Serial adaptation of The Code of the Woosters as Bertie Wooster with Andrew Sachs as Jeeves.

He hosts his satirical programme on BBC4, The Late Edition, which has been described as "Newsnight with jokes".^[3] It is loosely based on the format made popular by the American programme The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. This commitment led to his absence from the final two Now Show series of 2006, his place filled by other comedians referred to by the rest of the cast as "our replacement Marcus Brigstocke". He did however return to series in 2007.

Brigstocke's first stand up comedy DVD Planet Corduroy, produced by Phoenix Film & Television Productions, was released in November 2007.

In April 2008 he and fellow comedian and snowboarder, Andrew Maxwell founded the Altitude Festival - a comedy and music festival in the ski resort of Meribel, in the French Alps.

In September 2008, Brigstocke was team captain for the recording of the first series of a new TV comedy panel debating show, Argumental for UK TV channel Dave, He is the Captain of the Red Team. In this, he competes against Rufus Hound with a variety of guest participants, under the chairmanship of John Sergeant.^[4]

In 2009, Brigstocke starred in the UK tour of the hit American live improv show, Totally Looped.^[5]

His second stand-up show God Collar toured in 2009. In June 2010, Brigstocke announced that he had signed a publishing deal with Transworld to turn the God Collar Tour into a book.^[6]

He has also worked for television shows aimed at children for CBBC: Stupid! and Sorry I've Got No Head.

[edit] Pac-Man joke

One of the best-known jokes Brigstocke uses is an ironic commentary on the controversy regarding the influence of video games on children:

This joke is frequently quoted on the internet and often attributed to famous figures in electronics (such as an apocryphal CEO of Nintendo, "Kristian Wilson," although Hiroshi Yamauchi held that position from 1949 to 2002), but Brigstocke vehemently claims authorship of the joke:

[edit] Excuse My French (BBC2)

Brigstocke took part in the BBC programme Excuse My French, which was broadcast on BBC2. On the programme he, Ron Atkinson and Esther Rantzen were immersed in the French language by staying in a classic French town in the Provence region, being compelled to adapt to the French lifestyle and speak the language. His ultimate assignment was to perform a live stand-up comedy act in French to a French audience, a task at which he excelled. According to the programme, he continues to learn French, and has since performed more stand up in France (predominantly in English, but with sections in French).

Selected radio credits[link]

• Just A Minute
• The Now Show
• Giles Wemmbley Hogg Goes Off
• Think the Unthinkable
• The Museum of Everything
• 2000 Years of Radio
• As Safe As Houses
• 99p Challenge
• I've Never Seen Star Wars

Selected television credits[link]

• The Savages
• We Are History
• The Late Edition
• My Hero
• Stupid!
• Have I Got News for You
• Excuse My French
• What's The Problem? With Anne Robinson
• Marcus Brigstocke's Trophy People
• News Knight with Sir Trevor McDonald
• Thank God You're Here
• Sorry, I've Got No Head
• Argumental
• QI
• Hole in the Wall
• I've Never Seen Star Wars
• Would I Lie to You?
• The Bubble
• Who Set Fire To My Mud?
• The Graham Norton Show - January 2011

DVD[link]

• Marcus Brigstocke – Planet Corduroy (DVD Region 2). The Shaw Theatre, London, England: Sony/BMG. November 26, 2007. ASIN B000X21NIS. 

Theatre[link]

Brigstocke made his musical theatre debut as King Arthur in the UK tour of Spamalot for a limited engagement. He is currently starring in 'The Railway Children' as Albert Perks at the Waterloo Station Theatre.^[8]

[edit] I Don't Smoke

In 2000, a sample of a comedy sketch performed by Brigstocke, Dan Tetsell and Danny Robins as part of a Bristol University revue in which an individual assuredly proclaims that he is a non-smoker was featured in DJ Dee Kline's I Don't Smoke, alongside another line from Jim Davidson.

The sample was used without the knowledge of the comedians until the voice of Brigstocke was recognised by Tetsell, who heard the track whilst shopping, resulting in the trio successfully claiming publishing rights for the track, which entered the UK charts at number 11.^[9]

Personal life[link]

Brigstocke is dyslexic. During an appearance on the BBC TV show Room 101, first broadcast in January 2007, he admitted to having had weight problems as a younger man, and was once in rehab for food addiction. He still battles with his excessive appetite. He was expelled from King's School, Bruton for "beastie-ing" a car (that turned out to belong to one of the groundsmen) and shoplifting from the local shops to feed both his alcohol needs and "excessive appetite". In his book God Collar he reveals "I started sniffing solvents when I was thirteen and progressed to a limited range of other recreational drugs, with a preference for downers or opiate-style highs."^{[citation needed]} During his early adulthood, he was a goth.

During the early nineties he worked, part time, as a podium dancer at London nightclub the Ministry of Sound. He was also working on an oil rig at this time.^[10][11][2]

Brigstocke lives with his wife and university sweetheart, Sophie Prideaux,^[2][12] whom he married in 2001 in West Somerset. The couple have two children.

Brigstocke likes snowboarding – he had set up a stand up tour in the Alps and a comedy festival called The Altitude Festival.^[13] He's performed in beatboxing battles on stage with Shlomo and Bellatrix.^[14]

During an episode of The Late Edition filmed in October 2007, Brigstocke 'admitted' being an atheist, and was presented with an Out Campaign T-shirt by his guest and atheist Richard Dawkins to which Brigstocke replied:

Look at that. Outed, outed as an atheist and proud to be so"^[15]

Brigstocke endorsed Caroline Lucas and the Green Party in their successful bid for the seat of Brighton Pavilion (UK Parliament constituency) in the 2010 General Election.^[16]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Marcus Brigstocke

• Official Website
• Marcus Brigstocke at the Internet Movie Database

Rich Hall
Hall performing at the Tower Theatre in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania in 1986
Birth name	Richard Hall
Born	(1954-06-10) 10 June 1954 (age 58) Alexandria, Virginia, United States
Medium	Stand-up, television
Nationality	American
Years active	1979—present
Genres	Observational comedy, Deadpan, Political satire
Subject(s)	American culture, British culture, United States politics, British politics
Spouse	Karen Hall
Notable works and roles	QI, Saturday Night Live, Fridays, Late Show with David Letterman
Website	http://www.offthekerb.co.uk/rich-hall/

Richard "Rich" Hall (born 10 June 1954) is an American comedian, writer and musician.

Early life and career[link]

Hall was born in Alexandria, Virginia and grew up in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He is part Cherokee Indian and his mother's Christian name is Doris.^[1] Early in his career, he performed as a street comedian with a suitcase and stand, traveling the college circuit, and performing impromptu skits for gathering crowds.

Hall's first professional work was as a writer and performer on the American sketch comedy TV series Fridays from 1980 until 1982. After the end of Fridays, Hall co-wrote and starred in the satirical comedy series Not Necessarily the News from 1983 until 1990 where he coined the term "sniglet" and collected and published several volumes of books of them. Matt Groening has described him as the inspiration for Moe Szyslak from The Simpsons.^[2] He was also a regular on Saturday Night Live. In 1986, he had his own Showtime channel special, Vanishing America, which was turned into a book with the same title. He hosted a talk show during The Comedy Channel's 1990-91 season, titled Rich Hall's Onion World.

In the United States, he has appeared several times on American talk shows such as Late Show with David Letterman and Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

Appearances and work in the United Kingdom[link]

Outside his homeland, Hall has also achieved popularity in the United Kingdom, where he has lived on-and-off for 23 years. He spends part of his time during the off-seasons writing plays in the United States where he has a small ranch just outside Livingston, Montana. The rest of the time is spent in London, where he owns a flat. Hall is a guest on popular BBC panel quiz shows, most notably as a regular guest on QI,^[3] for which he has received much critical acclaim and is known as the game's most frequently victorious guest panellist with seven victories (only permanent panellist Alan Davies has won more shows), and also with appearances in 8 Out of 10 Cats, Have I Got News for You and Never Mind the Buzzcocks.^[4][5] He has also appeared on the British stand-up comedy series Jack Dee's Live at the Apollo. His appearances achieved some cult status due to his line of jokes on Live at the Apollo about Tom Cruise, and the perceivable similarities between many of his roles. In 2000, he won the Perrier Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe, in the guise of his own grizzled uncle, Otis Lee Crenshaw, the much-convicted country music singer. He has released several albums and a concert movie as this character. In 2004, he published a book of the man's memoirs, entitled Otis Lee Crenshaw: I Blame Society, and in 2007 he finished a screenplay for a film based on the book, written for the director Mel Smith.^[6] In 2006, Hall also wrote and acted in the play Levelland at the Edinburgh Festival.

Hall has had four BBC TV series of his own: Rich Hall's Badly Funded Think Tank, Rich Hall's Fishing Show in 2003, Rich Hall's Cattle Drive in 2006, as well as a one-off programme about the 2004 American Presidential Elections, Rich Hall's Election Special. He also appeared on the BBC Two programme Top Gear, where he successfully managed to make a song about a Rover 25 car, much to the enjoyment of host Jeremy Clarkson and the audience. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Hall was entrusted with the task of responding to the tragedy on the first subsequent edition of Have I Got News for You.

Hall has written and presented three 90-minute documentaries about film genres, broadcast on BBC Four. Rich Hall's How the West Was Lost (first broadcast June 2008)^[7] discusses Westerns, Rich Hall's The Dirty South (October 2010) challenges stereotypical Hollywood presentations of the Southern United States,^[8][9] and Rich Hall's Continental Drifters (November 2011) examines the American road movie.^[10]

In 2007, he returned to the Fringe with his second play, Best Western, which he wrote and directed. In 2008, Hall toured two stand-up shows around the UK: Rich Hall Autumn Tour 2008 played around 45 dates and he also went on the road as his alter-ego in a show entitled Otis Lee Crenshaw and Band that listed Rich Hall as a "special guest." He subsequently toured a version of this show throughout the UK and Ireland in 2009, with long time sidekick Myron T. Buttram (guitarist and pedal steel player, Rob Childs) and Lonesome Dave (banjoist and guitarist, David Lindsay) appearing at the 2009 Adelaide Fringe festival, the Sydney Opera House, and the 2009 Melbourne Comedy festival. With the band renamed as "The Honky Tonk A**holes" and joined by Horst Furst II (bassist, Nigel Portman Smith) and drummer Mark Hewitt, his autumn 2009 tour included a performance at London's Hammersmith Apollo, which was recorded and released in November 2009 as a live DVD.

In 2009, he performed at the Edinburgh Festival in two shows, his solo stand up and also with long time collaborator Mike Wilmot and Montana-based actor Tim Williams in a new play entitled "Campfire Stories".

On April 5, 2010, Hall appeared as one of the stand-up acts on Channel 4's Comedy Gala, a benefit show organised by Channel 4 to raise money for Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital.

Hall is now a regular performer on Channel 4's Stand Up for the Week, which began in June 2010.^[11]

Other appearances[link]

Hall also made an Irish TV appearance as a guest on the fifth series of RTÉ's topical news comedy programme, Don't Feed the Gondolas, and has appeared at the Kilkenny Cat Laughs comedy festival on 15 occasions. He has also performed at the West Belfast Festival/Feile an Phobail, one of the largest community festivals in Ireland, to a sell-out audience where he received widespread critical acclaim.

Hall appeared in several Pizza Hut commercials in the 1980s, mainly promoting Pizza Hut's guarantee of serving each customer within five minutes.

He has also achieved some popularity in Australia, regularly appearing at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and the Adelaide Fringe Festival, and also on Australian comedy panel shows, such as The Glass House and Spicks and Specks.

Rich Hall also made a guest appearance on Top Gear (British TV series) in 2003.

Hall has also appeared in France at the Altitude Comedy Festival 2008 in the ski resort of Meribel. He also appeared — albeit briefly — in the 2006 Cheap Seats (ESPNCL) episode titled "Steve Garvey Celebrity Skiing". He was also at the Garvey 1989 Celebrity Ski Classic.

[edit] List of celebrities impersonated on SNL

• Doug Henning
• Doug Flutie
• Bernhard Goetz
• Caspar Weinberger
• Paul Harvey
• David Byrne
• Mark Goodman
• Vince McMahon

Musical and literary career[link]

Discography[link]

1. London Not Tennessee (with The Black Liars) (2001)
2. How Do We Do It? Volume! (2003)

Bibliography[link]

1. 1984: Sniglets (Snig'Lit: Any Word That Doesn't Appear in the Dictionary, but Should), ISBN 0-02-012530-5
2. 1985: More Sniglets: Any Word That Doesn't Appear in the Dictionary, but Should
3. 1986: Unexplained Sniglets of the Universe
4. 1986: Rich Hall's Vanishing America, ISBN 0-02-547480-4
5. 1987: Angry Young Sniglets (1987)
6. 1989: When Sniglets Ruled the Earth (1989)
7. 1994: Self Help for the Bleak: Attaboy Therapy, ISBN 0-8431-3669-3
8. 2002: Things Snowball, ISBN 0-349-11576-1
9. 2003: Top Gear, (2003)
10. 2004: Otis Lee Crenshaw: I Blame Society, ISBN 0-349-11818-3
11. 2009: Magnificent Bastards, ISBN 0-349-11965-1

References[link]

External links[link]

• Rich Hall at the Internet Movie Database
• Rich Hall reading from "Magnificent Bastards" at writLOUD, London

Omid Djalili
Djalili at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival
Born	(1965-09-30) 30 September 1965 (age 46) Chelsea, London, England, United Kingdom
Medium	Film, television, stand-up
Subject(s)	Religion, race, culture, stereotypes, human interaction
Spouse	Annabel Knight

Omid Djalili ( /əˈmiːd dʒəˈlɪli/; Persian: امید جلیلی‎; born 30 September 1965)^[1] is a British Iranian stand-up comedian, actor, television producer and writer.

Personal life[link]

Djalili was born in Chelsea, London to Iranian Bahá'í parents and is a Bahá'í himself.^[2][3] He attended Holland Park School and then the University of Ulster in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, studying English and Theatre studies.^[4]

Djalili is a Chelsea fan.^[5] He is married to British actress and playwright Annabel Knight, with whom he has a daughter, Isabella, and two sons, Louis and Daniel. ^[6][7]

Comedy career[link]

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (February 2011)

Djalili performing at the Arts Depot in 2007

The first significant success of his stand-up comedy career was at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1995 with "Short, Fat Kebab Shop Owner's Son", followed by "The Arab and the Jew" in 1996.

He has performed in numerous countries, including Australia, Ireland, Sweden, Belgium, Canada and the United States, where he had his own HBO Special and did 22 episodes of the NBC sitcom Whoopi with Whoopi Goldberg.

He did his part for Comic Relief after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami and also in 2005 he appeared on the British TV show Top Gear as a celebrity driver. The same year he broke Edinburgh Festival box office records with over 16,500 ticket sales.

In 2006, Sky Television picked him to be the face of their Saturday night film premières, and he also announced a new tour of the UK called 'No Agenda', from January 2007 until March 2007, covering 23 different dates. The No Agenda tour DVD was released in late 2007.

On 18 March 2007, he was voted by the British public as the 60th best stand-up comedian in a Channel 4 programme "The 100 Greatest Stand-Ups". On 26 October 2007, he guest-presented the BBC political quiz show Have I Got News for You.^{[citation needed]} The Omid Djalili Show started on BBC1 on 17 November 2007. The series is a mix of sketches and stand-up material. A second series was recorded in late 2008 and began broadcast on BBC1 on 20 April 2009. He performed on We Are Most Amused on ITV1 to mark Prince Charles's 60th birthday in 2008.

A touring stand-up, his next tour starts on 14 October 2011 although previews of this tour are being performed in smaller venues such as The Beggar's Theatre, Millom. Another small venue that he has performed in is the Victoria Hall in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. When he was there, he did an interview with local radio, 6 Towns Radio about his show in Hanley.^[8].

Acting career[link]

Djalili has appeared in a number of films, most notably Gladiator, The Mummy, Mean Machine, The World Is Not Enough, Alien Autopsy, Spy Game, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Grow Your Own, Notting Hill, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Sex and the City 2 and provides his voice in Over the Hedge.

He had observed that he usually appears as a generic Middle Eastern background character in many of these films, often commenting that he appears in the James Bond film as the "Second Azerbaijani oil pipe attendant". He appeared as Nasim in the U.S. sitcom Whoopi, starring Whoopi Goldberg, and picked up an international film award for Best Supporting Actor in Casanova, starring alongside Heath Ledger and Jeremy Irons.

On 12 February 2009, Cameron Macintosh (producer) announced that Djalili will appear as the second Fagin in the new West End production of Oliver! at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London. Omid took over from Rowan Atkinson, who was contracted until 18 July 2009.^[9]

In 2009, Djalili became the voice of Yusuf Amir in the popular gaming series Grand Theft Auto. He took up the role in the Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony spin-off game. In 2010, he starred in the David Baddiel scripted film The Infidel.

In 2010, Djalili starred in a series of TV and cinema adverts for Moneysupermarket.com.^[10]

Djalili appeared in the short-lived NBC sitcom The Paul Reiser Show, which was a midseason replacement for the 2010-11 television season.^[11]

For the BBC Learning project "Off By Heart Shakespeare", Omid played Lord Capulet from Romeo and Juliet and delivered the speech "Hang thee, young baggage, disobedient wretch!"^[12]

Other activities[link]

On 13 June 2010, Djalili appeared in a Meltdown Festival concert^[13] given by the Philharmonia Orchestra at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, performing the part of the narrator in 'Rubaiyat', a tone poem by American classical composer Alan Hovhaness which sets the words of Omar Khayyám to music. He also appeared on the Graham Norton Show on 17 February 2012, alongside Daniel Radcliffe and Cuba Gooding Jr..

Filmography[link]

Cinema[link]

• The Mummy (1999)
• Notting Hill (1999)
• Mad Cows (1999)
• The World Is Not Enough (1999)
• Gladiator (2000)
• Spy Game (2001)
• Mean Machine (2001)
• Anita and Me (2002)
• Cross My Heart (2003)
• Deadlines (2004)
• The Calcium Kid (2004)
• Modigliani (2004)
• Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)
• Casanova (2005)
• Alien Autopsy (2006)
• Over the Hedge as Tiger, the bad tempered Persian cat (2006)
• Grow Your Own (2007)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
• The Love Guru (2008)
• Dead Man Running (2009)
• The Infidel (2010)
• Sex and the City 2 (2010)
• Animals United (2010)
• Mr. Nice (2010)
• Big Fat Gypsy Gangster (2011)

Television[link]

• The Friday Night Armistice (1996)
• Alexei Sayle's Merry-Go-Round (1998)
• The Bill (1998)
• Barking (TV series) (1998)
• The Lake of Darkness (1999)
• Cleopatra (1999)
• Coming Soon (1999)
• Small Potatoes (1999)
• Black Books (2000)
• Jason and the Argonauts (2000)
• Lenny Henry in Pieces (2000)
• So What Now? (2001)
• Relic Hunter (2002)
• Dinotopia: The Series (2002)
• Between Iraq and a Hard Place (2003)
• Whoopi (2003)
• Live at the Apollo (2004)
• Age of Awakening. Narrator (2005)
• Chopra Town (2005)
• One Night Stand (HBO) (2005)
• My Family and Other Animals (2005)
• Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive (2006)
• Jack Dee's Lead Balloon (2006)
• Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law (2006)
• TV Heaven, Telly Hell (2007)
• Have I Got News For You (2007)
• The Omid Djalili Show (2007)
• Premier League All Stars (2007)
• Never Mind The Buzzcocks (2008)
• The Omid Djalili Show - Series 2 (2009)
• Would I Lie To You? (2009)
• The Paul Reiser Show (2011)

Video games[link]

• Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony as Yusuf Amir.^[14] (2009)