- published: 22 Mar 2007
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- author: BBC
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Ethiopia
Ethiopia (
/ˌiːθiˈoʊpiə/) (Ge'ez: ኢትዮጵያ ʾĪtyōṗṗyā), officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2. Ethiopia is bordered by Eritrea to the north, Djibouti and Somalia to the east, Sudan and South Sudan to the west, and Kenya to the south. With its capital at Addis Ababa, it is also the most populous landlocked nation in the world.
Ethiopia was a monarchy for most of its history, and the Ethiopian dynasty traces its roots to the 2nd century BC. Ethiopia is also one of the oldest sites of human existence known to scientists today, having yielded some of humanity's oldest traces. It may be the region from which Homo sapiens first set out for the Middle East and points beyond. Alongside Rome, Persia, China and India, the Ethiopian Aksum Empire was considered one of the great world powers of the 3rd century. During the Scramble for Africa, Ethiopia was the only African country beside Liberia that retained its sovereignty as a recognized independent country, and was one of only four African members of the League of Nations. After a brief period of Italian occupation, Ethiopia became a charter member of the United Nations. When other African nations received their independence following World War II, many of them adopted the colors of Ethiopia's flag, and Addis Ababa became the location of several international organizations focused on Africa.
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Hook, London
Coordinates: 51°21′49″N 0°17′59″W / 51.3635°N 0.2998°W / 51.3635; -0.2998
Hook is a place in south west London, England. It forms part of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames and is located 13.5 miles (21.7 km) south west of Charing Cross.
Hook was a civil parish which formed part of the Surbiton Urban District of Surrey from 1895. The urban district became a municipal borough in 1936 and in 1965 its former area was transferred to Greater London. The former area of the Hook parish, together with that of the Chessington parish, form a protrusion of Greater London with the Surrey districts of Elmbridge to the west, Mole Valley to the south and Epsom and Ewell to the east.
An RAF barrage balloon depot opened in Hook circa 1938 and was later known as RAF Chessington, latterly used as a hospital until demolished and redeveloped for housing in the 1990s.
Hook forms part of the Chessington post town.
Only three listed homes exist in the entire post town of Chessington, two on Hook Road, just north of Chessington itself on the east side. There the main road has number 325, a 19th-century CE two-storey home featuring central doorway with moulded architrave and bracketed hood with fluted Ionic columns and number 435, inscribed 1669 with later alterations, with 2 part baffle- (or lobby-) entry, spanning 2 storeys whose front has been refaced with brick and which is probably timber-framed behind; its sides and back are weather-boarded and it has a steeply pitched, pantiled roof with central chimney. Many former 18th- and 19th-century houses on this old Kingston-upon-Thames to Dorking and Horsham route have been redeveloped or were destroyed during World War II, including The Blitz, as shown in the street numbering.
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YLE
Yleisradio (Finnish) or Rundradion (Swedish), abbreviated to Yle (pronounced [yle]), is Finland's national public-broadcasting company, founded in 1926. Yleisradio's organization shares many of its characteristics with its British counterpart, the BBC, on which it was largely modelled. It employs around 3,200 people in Finland.
Yle is a public limited company, owned by the Finnish state (with a 99.98 % share). It is funded primarily (90%) through a television fee, allocated by the Cabinet of Finland, which is between €208.15 and €215.4 per year, as well as through private television broadcasting license fees. Yle has a status that could be described as that of a non-departmental public body. It is governed by a parliamentary governing council. Yle's turnover in 2006 was 383.5 million euro.
Yle operates four national television channels, 13 radio channels and services, and 25 regional radio stations. Finland being an officially bilingual country — around 5.5% of the population have Swedish as their mother-tongue — Yle provides radio and TV programming in Swedish through a department called Svenska Yle. As is customary in Finnish television and cinemas, foreign films and shows are generally subtitled on Yle's channels. Dubbing is used in cartoons intended for young children who have not yet learned to read, as well as many nature and history documentaries ("to avoid spoiling beautiful pictures").
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Adele (singer)
Adele Laurie Blue Adkins (born 5 May 1988), better known simply as Adele, is an English singer-songwriter and musician. Adele was offered a recording contract from XL Recordings after a friend posted her demo on MySpace in 2006. The next year she received the Brit Awards "Critics' Choice" award and won the BBC Sound of 2008. Her debut album, 19, was released in 2008 to much commercial and critical success. The album is certified four times platinum in the UK, and double platinum in the US. Her career in the US was boosted by a Saturday Night Live appearance in late 2008. At the 2009 Grammy Awards, Adele received the awards for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.
Adele released her second album, 21, in early 2011. The album was well received critically and surpassed the success of her debut.21 helped Adele earn six Grammy Awards in 2012 including Album of the Year, equalling the record for most Grammy Awards won by a female artist in one night. The album has also helped her receive numerous other awards, including two Brit Awards and three American Music Awards. The album has been certified 16 times platinum in the UK; in the US the album has held the top position longer than any other album since 1985.
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Adrian Edmondson
Adrian Charles "Ade" Edmondson (born 24 January 1957) is an English comic actor, writer, musician, television presenter and director.
Edmonson came to prominence in the early 1980s and was part of the alternative comedy boom. He is probably best known for his comedic roles in the television series The Young Ones (1982–1984) and Bottom (1991–2003), for which he also wrote together with his long-time collaborative partner Rik Mayall. Edmondson also appeared in the Comic Strip Presents... series of films throughout the 1980s and 90s. For one episode of this he created the spoof heavy metal band Bad News, and for another he played his nihilistic alter-ego Eddie Monsoon, an offensive South African television star. He played the lead role in the 1985 spin-off feature film, The Supergrass. In the 2000s Edmondson appeared in numerous TV programmes in more serious drama roles including Jonathan Creek, Holby City, Miss Austen Regrets, as himself on Hell's Kitchen and created the sitcom Teenage Kicks.
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Aerosmith
Aerosmith is an American rock band, formed in Boston, Massachusetts in 1970. Guitarist Joe Perry and bassist Tom Hamilton, originally in a band together called the Jam Band, met up with singer Steven Tyler, drummer Joey Kramer, and guitarist Ray Tabano, and formed Aerosmith. In 1971, Tabano was replaced by Brad Whitford, and the band began developing a following in Boston. Their style, which is rooted in blues-based hard rock, has come to also incorporate elements of pop,heavy metal, and rhythm and blues, and has inspired many subsequent rock artists.
They were signed to Columbia Records in 1972, and released a string of multi-platinum albums, beginning with their 1973 eponymous debut album, followed by their 1974 album Get Your Wings. In 1975, the band broke into the mainstream with the album Toys in the Attic, and their 1976 follow-up Rocks cemented their status as hard rock superstars. The band released two more albums, toured extensively, and charted a string of Hot 100 singles. By the end of the 1970s, they were among the most popular hard rock bands in the world and developed a loyal following of fans, often referred to as the "Blue Army". However, drug addiction and internal conflict took their toll on the band, which resulted in the departures of Perry and Whitford in 1979 and 1981, respectively; they were replaced by Jimmy Crespo and Rick Dufay. The band did not fare well between 1980 and 1984, releasing a lone album, Rock in a Hard Place, which went gold but failed to match their previous successes.
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Al Murray
Alastair James Hay "Al" Murray (born 10 May 1968), is a British comedian best known for his stand-up persona, The Pub Landlord, a stereotypical xenophobic public house licensee. In 2003, he was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy. In 2007 he was voted the 16th greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups and again in the updated 2010 list as the 25th greatest stand-up comic.
Murray was born in Stewkley, Buckinghamshire, the son of Lieutenant Colonel Ingram Bernard Hay Murray (through whom he is a great-great-great-great-great-grandson of John Murray, 3rd Duke of Atholl) and Juliet Anne Thackeray Ritchie (through whom he is a great-great-great-grandson of William Makepeace Thackeray). His grandfather was diplomat Sir Ralph Murray. Murray attended Bedford School and is a graduate of St Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he studied modern history. There he performed in the comedy group, the Oxford Revue in a show directed by Stewart Lee.
Murray married Amber, in 2000. The couple, who have two daughters, Scarlett and Willow, separated in 2008.
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Alan Carr
Alan Carr (born 14 June 1976) is an English comedian and television personality. Born in Weymouth, he was raised in Northampton before moving to Manchester in his early 20s. Carr was inspired to become a comedian here and made his breakthrough in 2001, winning the City Life Best Newcomer of the Year and the BBC New Comedy Award.
In the ensuing years, his career burgeoned on the Manchester comedy circuit, and became well known for hosting the Friday Night Project with Justin Lee Collins. Carr hosted a radio show, Going Out with Alan Carr on BBC Radio 2 as well as a television show, Alan Carr: Chatty Man for Channel 4. Carr has also had two arena tours, the first in 2007 entitled Tooth Fairy Live and the second in 2011 entitled Spexy Beast Live.
Carr was born in Weymouth, Dorset, and grew up partly in Northampton where he went to Weston Favell School. His father is former Northampton Town and Nuneaton Borough F.C. manager Graham Carr. On his father's side, his family hail from North East England. Carr has a younger brother, Gary. Carr gained a BA (Hons) degree in Drama and Theatre Studies, graduating with a 2:1 from Middlesex University.
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Alan Moore
Alan Oswald Moore (born 18 November 1953) is an English writer primarily known for his work in comic books, a medium where he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and popular series, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell. Frequently described as the best graphic novel writer in history, he has also been described as "one of the most important British writers of the last fifty years". He has occasionally used such pseudonyms as Curt Vile, Jill de Ray, and Translucia Baboon.
Moore started out writing for British underground and alternative fanzines in the late 1970s before achieving success publishing comic strips in such magazines as 2000 AD and Warrior. He was subsequently picked up by the American DC Comics, and as "the first comics writer living in Britain to do prominent work in America", he worked on big name characters such as Batman (Batman: The Killing Joke) and Superman (Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?), substantially developed the minor character Swamp Thing, and penned original titles such as Watchmen. During that decade, Moore helped to bring about greater social respectability for the medium in the United States and United Kingdom, and has subsequently been credited with the development of the term "graphic novel" over "comic book". In the late 1980s and early 1990s he left the comic industry mainstream and went independent for a while, working on experimental work such as the epic From Hell, pornographic Lost Girls, and the prose novel Voice of the Fire. He subsequently returned to the mainstream later in the 1990s, working for Image Comics, before developing America's Best Comics, an imprint through which he published works such as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the occult-based Promethea.
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Alan Sugar
Alan Michael Sugar, Baron Sugar (born 24 March 1947) is a British business magnate, media personality, and political advisor. From humble origins in the East End of London, Sugar now has an estimated fortune of £770m (US$1.14 billion), and was ranked 89th in the Sunday Times Rich List 2011. In 2007, he sold his remaining interest in the consumer electronics company Amstrad, his largest and best known business venture.
Sugar is also notable for his time as chairman of Tottenham Hotspur from 1991 to 2001. He starred in the BBC TV series The Apprentice, which has run to eight series. It has been broadcast annually since 2005 and is based upon the popular U.S. television show of the same name, featuring the American entrepreneur Donald Trump.
Sugar was born in Hackney, east London. He is the youngest of four children of Fay (1907–1994) and Nathan (1907–1987) Sugar. His father was a tailor in the East End garment industry.
When Sugar was a child, his family lived in a council flat. Because of his profuse, curly hair, he was nicknamed "Mopsy". He attended Northwold Primary School and then Brooke House Secondary School in Upper Clapton, Hackney, and made extra money by boiling and selling beetroot from a stall. In The Apprentice (2009), Sugar revealed "I was in the Jewish Lads Brigade, Stamford Hill Division, Trainee Bugler, but it didn't make me sell computers!" After leaving school at 16, he worked briefly for the civil service as a statistician at the Ministry of Education. He started selling car aerials and electrical goods out of a van he had bought with his savings of £100.
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Alesha Dixon
Alesha Anjanette Dixon (born 7 October 1978) is a British rapper, singer-songwriter, dancer, model and television personality. She first found fame in the all-female R&B/garage trio Mis-Teeq, however, the trio separated in 2005 and Dixon continued pursuing her music career as a solo artist, signing to Polydor Records. Dixon began recording her debut solo album, Fired Up, in 2006, but due to poor record sales of her first two singles, "Lipstick" and "Knockdown", she was dropped from Polydor.
In 2007 Dixon became a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing and eventually won. Her television exposure led to a successful comeback, which included her signing to Asylum Records, an offshoot of Warner Music Group. Dixon then released a second album, entitled The Alesha Show, in 2008, which received platinum certification from BPI in the UK and spawned four singles including "The Boy Does Nothing" and "Breathe Slow", the latter of which became her highest charting single and earned her a Brit Award nomination.
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Amanda Keller
Amanda Rose Keller (born 25 February 1962) is an Australian journalist, radio and television presenter, and media personality.
Keller went to Carlingford High School (NSW) and studied media and communications at Mitchell College of Advanced Education (MCAE) as a contemporary of Andrew Denton (among others). She was a broadcaster with on-campus community radio station 2MCE-FM. Keller has no recorded entries of undertaking services to the community during her years at primary school or high school or while an undergraduate student.
Her first professional media job was in 1983 as a researcher for the popular children's television show, Simon Townsend's Wonder World! She was later a researcher and producer for Good Morning Australia when Gordon Elliott and Kerri-Anne Kennerley were hosts. By 1985, she was a researcher and producer for Ray Martin's Midday show, where she first began to appear regularly on camera.
In 1987, she left Midday to appear in the pilot for Richard Neville's counter-culture programme Extra Dimensions, which was produced by the same team that made Beyond 2000. Extra Dimensions folded after the first season. Keller's luck changed when she was signed to Beyond 2000, the internationally popular science programme, where she won numerous media awards including the United Nations Association of Australia's Media Peace Award in 1989, and the Michael Daley Award for Science Journalism.
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Andy Pipkin
Lou Todd and Andy Pipkin are fictional characters from the cult BBC TV and radio show Little Britain, played by David Walliams and Matt Lucas respectively. Andy's catchphrases include, "Yeah I know", "Want that one" and "(I) Don't like it", while Lou's catchphrase is "What a kerfuffle!"
Lou is kind, generous and incredibly patient. He spends his spare time helping his friend Andy, who - unbeknown to Lou - feigns the need for a wheelchair. Moreover, his fashion sense primarily encompasses the 1980s, which is apparent from his general attire. He is typically seen wearing an awkward juxtaposition of trainers, blue tracksuit trousers, a T-shirt with slogans such as "I ran the World" or "Frankie Says RELAX - Don't do it" and a 1970s-style leather jacket with the sleeves pushed up to near the elbow. He speaks with a slight East London accent, with a lisp.
Andy is moody, contrary, has no respect for other sentient beings, appears to be unintelligent, has no interest in the world outside his local area, is very fat and plain lazy. Furthermore, Andy could be viewed as being genuinely mentally retarded, but this could just be regarded as the manifestation of his ignorant nature, and the perceived corruption of his psyche owing to watching too much television. He is also dressed mostly in scruffy clothing such as well-worn 'jogging bottoms' and a dirty vest. He speaks with a nasal, strong, slurred Liverpool accent. He has an unseen or unheard from brother called Declan, and previously had a woman called Maria (who died in one episode) as a caretaker before Lou (Lou mentioned her regularly in the early episodes of Series 1).
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Angus Deayton
Gordon Angus Deayton (/ˈdiːtən/; born 6 January 1956)[citation needed] is an English actor, writer, musician, comedian and broadcaster. He is best known as the former presenter of the satirical panel game Have I Got News for You, a job from which he was dismissed in October 2002 after a second round of tabloid allegations about his personal life. He is also known for his role as Victor Meldrew's long-suffering neighbour Patrick Trench in the comedy series One Foot in the Grave.
The youngest of three sons to a Prudential plc insurance broker/manager and a home economics school teacher, Deayton was brought up in Banstead, Surrey, and attended Oakhyrst Grange School and Caterham School. He showed early promise as a footballer, and had a trial with Crystal Palace. He was captain of the Caterham U16 Rugby team.
Deayton read languages at New College, Oxford, where he was recruited into the Oxford Revue, performing with them at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. This led to the creation of the parody band The Hee Bee Gee Bees (re the Bee Gees) in 1980, with the songs written by Richard Curtis and Philip Pope. Their best-selling single "Meaningless Songs (In Very High Voices)" (plus the B-side "Posing in the Moonlight") was a parody of the falsetto style of countless disco hits by the Bee Gees.
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Annie Lennox
Ann "Annie" Lennox, OBE (born 25 December 1954), is a Scottish singer-songwriter, political activist and philanthropist. After achieving minor success in the late 1970s as part of the New Wave band The Tourists, she and fellow musician David A. Stewart went on to achieve major international success in the 1980s as Eurythmics. Lennox is the most recognized female artist at the Brit Awards, winning a total of eight awards. She has also been named the "Brits Champion of Champions".
Lennox embarked on a solo career in the 1990s with her debut album, Diva (1992), which produced several hit singles including "Why" and "Walking on Broken Glass". To date, she has released five solo studio albums and a compilation album, The Annie Lennox Collection (2009). She is the recipient of eight Brit Awards, four Grammy Awards and an MTV Video Music Award. In 2002, Lennox received a Billboard Century Award; the highest accolade from Billboard Magazine. In 2004, she won both the Golden Globe and the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Into the West", written for the soundtrack to the feature film The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
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Anthony McPartlin
Anthony David "Ant" McPartlin (born 18 November 1975) is one half of the English comedy and television presenting duo Ant & Dec, with the other being Declan Donnelly. He came to prominence in the children's drama series Byker Grove and as one half of the pop music duo PJ & Duncan. Since then, Ant & Dec have had a very successful career as TV presenters, presenting programmes such as SMTV Live, Friends Like These, Pop Idol, I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, Britain's Got Talent, PokerFace, Push the Button, Red or Black? and Text Santa. They have also returned to acting, starring in a 2002 Tribute to The Likely Lads and the 2006 film Alien Autopsy.
Ant's first appearance on television was on the children's workshop programme Why Don't You? but he rose to prominence playing PJ in the Children's BBC series Byker Grove. It was here that he first met Declan Donnelly, who was cast in the part of Duncan, and real life mirrored the programme as the two became best friends both on set and off. In the guise of "PJ & Duncan AKA", they had a number of hit records, starting with "Tonight I'm Free", a song that they had performed on the show. The two left the series in 1993.
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Bee Gees
The Bee Gees were a musical group founded in 1958. The group's line-up consisted of brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. The trio were successful for most of their decades of recording music, but they had two distinct periods of exceptional success: as a pop act in the late 1960s/early 1970s, and as prominent performers of the disco music era in the late 1970s.
The group sang three-part tight harmonies that were instantly recognisable; Robin's clear vibrato lead was a hallmark of their earlier hits, while Barry's R&B falsetto became their signature sound during the late 1970s and 1980s. The brothers wrote all of their own hits, as well as writing and producing several major hits for other artists.
Born in the Isle of Man to English parents, the Gibb brothers lived their first few years in Chorlton, Manchester, England, then moved in the late 1950s to Redcliffe, Queensland, Australia, where they began their musical careers. After achieving their first chart success in Australia with "Spicks and Specks" (their 12th single), they returned to the United Kingdom in January 1967 where producer Robert Stigwood began promoting them to a worldwide audience.
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Ben Shephard
Benjamin Peter "Ben" Shephard, also known as "Sheps" (born Wednesday 11 December 1974) is an English television presenter who currently works for Sky Sports. His most recognised work is with the now defunct breakfast station GMTV as well as various roles within ITV.
Shephard attended Chigwell School in Essex, and went on to achieve a 2:1 BA Hons degree from the University of Birmingham in Dance, Drama & Theatre Arts. A West Ham United supporter, he has also received honours in both rugby and football.
On 30 June 2010, he announced his departure from GMTV two months earlier than planned in order to spend time with his family and do some charity work across Britain On 27 July, he announced he is signing a new contract with Sky Sports. He will work on live football and co-present Goals On Sunday in a deal worth a reported £495,000 a year On 30 July, he presented his final GMTV show. On 8 August 2010, he started doing work for Sky Sports on the show Goals on Sunday whilst doing a number of new projects with ITV.
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Billy Crystal
William Edward "Billy" Crystal (born March 14, 1948) is an American actor, writer, producer, comedian, and film director. He gained prominence in the 1970s for playing Jodie Dallas on the ABC sitcom Soap and became a Hollywood film star during the late 1980s and 1990s, appearing in the critical and box office successes When Harry Met Sally... and City Slickers. He has hosted the Academy Awards nine times, including the 84th Academy Awards in 2012.
Crystal was born in the Doctor's Hospital in Manhattan and raised on Long Island in Long Beach, the son of Helen (née Gabler), a housewife, and Jack Crystal, a record company executive and jazz producer who also owned and operated the Commodore Record store. His babysitter was occasionally Billie Holiday. His uncle was musician and songwriter Milt Gabler, and his brother, Richard "Rip" Crystal, is a television producer. Crystal grew up in a Jewish family that he has described as "large" and "loving".
After graduation from Long Beach High School, Crystal attended Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia on a baseball scholarship, having learned the game from his father, who pitched for St. John's University. Crystal never played a game at Marshall because the program was suspended during his freshman year, and because he was too busy being the Editor in Chief of The BG News from 1969–70. He did not return to Marshall as a sophomore, staying back in New York with his future wife. He instead attended Nassau Community College and later New York University, where he graduated in 1970 with a BFA from its Tisch School of the Arts.
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Bob Mortimer
Robert Renwick "Bob" Mortimer (born 23 May 1959 in Middlesbrough) is an English comedian and actor, who is best known for his double act with Vic Reeves (see Vic and Bob). He owns the independent production company Pett Productions with Vic Reeves and Lisa Clark and is the voice of Churchill the Dog in adverts for Churchill Insurance.
Mortimer's biscuit salesman father died, very young, in a car crash and as a result he and his three brothers were brought up by their mother, Eunice. He attended Acklam High School on the site of Acklam Hall in Acklam, Middlesbrough. He trialled for local professional football club Middlesbrough, but was not able to take the sport up due to arthritis. He left school with three A-levels and went on to study law at the Universities of Sussex and Leicester. There, Mortimer became involved in political causes and the punk movement, starting a band called Dog Dirt. After leaving university with an LLM in Welfare Law, he moved to London and became a solicitor for Southwark Council. He then moved to a private practice.
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Bob Zmuda
Bob Zmuda (born December 12, 1949) is an American writer, comedian, producer and director best known as the sidekick, co-writer and friend of cult personality Andy Kaufman.
Bob Zmuda occasionally portrayed Kaufman's Tony Clifton character on stage and for television appearances. In a 2006 interview, Zmuda told the Opie and Anthony Show that it was him as Tony Clifton with David Letterman, and that Letterman did not find out until years after.
In 1986, Zmuda founded the American version of Comic Relief, an annual event that raises money to help the homeless in the United States. The event was televised on HBO, and was hosted by comedians Robin Williams, Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg.
In 1999, Zmuda wrote a book about Kaufman's life, entitled Andy Kaufman Revealed!, which purported to unveil many tricks and hoaxes that the two pulled off in front of audiences and television cameras in the 1980s. One critic praised the book as "the ultimate insider's look at Kaufman's life," while some of Kaufman's fans and members of Kaufman's family criticized it for inaccuracies about Kaufman.
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Bono
Paul David Hewson (born 10 May 1960), most commonly known by his stage name Bono (/ˈbɒnoʊ/ BON-oh), is an Irish singer, musician, and humanitarian best known for being the main vocalist of the Dublin-based rock band U2. Bono was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, and attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School where he met his future wife, Alison Stewart, and the future members of U2. Bono writes almost all U2 lyrics, often using political, social, and religious themes. During their early years, Bono's lyrics contributed to U2's rebellious and spiritual tone. As the band matured, his lyrics became inspired more by personal experiences shared with members of U2.
Outside the band, he has collaborated and recorded with numerous artists, is managing director and a managing partner of Elevation Partners, and has refurbished and owns The Clarence Hotel in Dublin with The Edge. Bono is also widely known for his activism concerning Africa, for which he co-founded DATA, EDUN, the ONE Campaign and Product Red. He has organised and played in several benefit concerts and has met with influential politicians. Bono has been praised and criticised for his activism and involvement with U2. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, was granted an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, and was named as a Person of the Year by Time, among other awards and nominations.
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Brian May
Brian Harold May, CBE (born 19 July 1947) is an English musician and astrophysicist most widely known as the guitarist, songwriter and occasional singer of the rock band Queen. As a guitarist he uses his home-built guitar, "Red Special", and has composed hits such as "Tie Your Mother Down", "I Want It All", "We Will Rock You", "Fat Bottomed Girls" and "Who Wants to Live Forever".
He was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005 for "services to the music industry and his charity work". May earned a PhD in astrophysics from Imperial College in 2007 and is currently the Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University. May currently resides in Surrey.
In 2005, a Planet Rock poll saw May voted the 7th greatest guitarist of all time. He was ranked at No. 26 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
Brian May, the only child of Harold and Ruth May, was born in Hampton, London and attended Hampton Grammar School (now Hampton School). During this time he formed his first band with vocalist and bassist Tim Staffell, named Nineteen Eighty-Four after George Orwell's novel of the same name. He left Hampton Grammar School with ten GCE Ordinary Levels and three Advanced Levels in Physics, Mathematics and Applied Mathematics. He studied Mathematics and Physics at Imperial College London, graduating with B.Sc. degree with honours.
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Brian Potter
Brian Chelsea Potter, one of many fictional characters played by Peter Kay, is the owner of The Phoenix Club in both That Peter Kay Thing and Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights. He also appeared in Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere.
Although Brian's age is uncertain, it is known that Brian was not paralysed in his earlier years, as it was seen in Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere. Before owning the Phoenix Club, Brian is noted to say he once ran the Barracuda Club in Lincoln, one of many places Peter Kay started doing his comedy routine in, standing on a crate. In an episode of That Peter Kay Thing, he also states that he ran the Aquarius club and that is where he lost the use of his legs. He claims that a fruit machine fell on top of him and pinned him up against a serving hatch. After that he was in a coma until the new year, then he'd lost his club, his legs and his will to live.
Brian took over the Aquarius Club after losses were seen, and soon with his management, he had big-name acts such as Bob Carolgees and Spit the Dog, Cannon and Ball and T'Pau, and was soon making profits on the bar of over £500 per night. However, after staying in late, most likely counting money, he was befallen by a tragic accident when the club flooded and a One-armed bandit fell over, crushing his legs, making him disabled. He had it rebuilt as the Neptune Club, opened in time for Talent Trek 1999. The Neptune burned down soon after, due to Potter's thriftiness on Christmas lights.
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Bruce Dickinson
Paul Bruce Dickinson (born 7 August 1958) is an English singer, songwriter, airline pilot, fencer, broadcaster, author, screenwriter, actor and former marketing director, best known as the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden.
Dickinson began his career in music fronting small pub bands at school and University, including Styx (not the American band of the same name) in 1976, Speed, (1977–1978), and Shots in early 1979. He then joined the band Samson later in 1979, where he gained some popularity under the stage name, "Bruce Bruce." He left Samson in 1981 to join Iron Maiden as their new vocalist, replacing Paul Di'Anno, and debuting on their 1982 album The Number of the Beast. During his first tenure in the band, they issued a series of high impact releases, resulting in Dickinson gaining worldwide fame, and becoming one of the most acclaimed heavy metal vocalists of all time.
Dickinson quit Iron Maiden in 1993 in order to pursue his solo career, being replaced by Blaze Bayley, which saw him experiment with a wide variety of heavy metal and rock styles. Dickinson rejoined the band in 1999 along with guitarist Adrian Smith, with whom he released four subsequent studio albums. Since his return to Iron Maiden, Dickinson issued one further solo record in 2005, Tyranny of Souls. He is the older cousin of Rob Dickinson, former lead singer of British alternative rock band Catherine Wheel. His son, Austin, is the lead singer in metalcore band Rise to Remain. On 19 July 2011, Dickinson was presented with an honorary music doctorate from Queen Mary College, in honour of his contribution to the music industry.
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Bryan Talbot
Bryan Talbot (born February 24, 1952) is a British comic book artist and writer, best known as the creator of The Adventures of Luther Arkwright and its sequel Heart of Empire.
Bryan Talbot was born in Wigan, Lancashire, on February 24, 1952. He attended Wigan Grammar School, the Wigan School of Art, and Harris College in Preston, Lancashire, from which he graduated with a degree in Graphic Design.
Talbot began his comics work in the underground comix scene of the late 1960s. In 1969 his first work appeared as illustrations in Mallorn, the British Tolkien Society magazine, followed in 1972 by a weekly strip in his college newspaper.
He continued in the scene after leaving college, producing Brainstorm Comix, the first three of which formed The Chester P. Hackenbush Trilogy (a character reworked by Alan Moore as Chester Williams for Swamp Thing).
He started The Adventures of Luther Arkwright in 1978. It was originally published in Near Myths and continued on over the years in other publications. It was eventually collected together into one volume by Dark Horse. Along with When the Wind Blows it is one of the first British graphic novels.
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Carol Voderman
Carol Jean Vorderman MBE (born 24 December 1960) is a British media personality, best known for co-hosting the popular game show Countdown for 26 years from 1982 to 2008. In September 2011 she became a co-host of the ITV1 panel show Loose Women.
Vorderman was born in Bedford, the youngest of three children of Dutch father Anton 'Tony' Vorderman (1920-2007) and Welsh mother Edwina Jean (née Davies). Her parents separated three weeks after her birth, and her mother took the family back to her home town of Prestatyn, North Wales, where Vorderman and her siblings, Anton and Trixie, grew up in a one-parent household. Vorderman's parents separated when she was three weeks old and divorced when she was a baby and she did not see him again until she was 42. In 1970 her mother married Italian immigrant Armido Rizzi. The couple separated ten years later. Vorderman's father remarried; his wife died in the early 1990s.
Vorderman was educated at the Roman Catholic comprehensive Blessed Edward Jones High School in Rhyl. At the age of seventeen she went to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, in 1978, where she studied Engineering and gained a third class honours degree at age 20.
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Catherine Tate
Catherine Tate (born Catherine Ford on 12 May 1968) is an English actress, writer and comedienne. She has won numerous awards for her work on the sketch comedy series The Catherine Tate Show as well as being nominated for an International Emmy Award and seven BAFTA Awards. Following the success of The Catherine Tate Show, Tate played Donna Noble in the 2006 Christmas special of Doctor Who and later reprised her role, becoming the Doctor's companion for the fourth series in 2008. In 2011, she began a recurring role as Nellie Bertram on The Office.
Tate was born in Bloomsbury and brought up in the Brunswick Centre. Her mother, Josephine, was a florist, and Tate has said that the character of Margaret in The Catherine Tate Show, who shrieks at the slightest of disturbances, is based largely on Josephine.
Tate never knew her father, as he left very early on in her life, and consequently, she was brought up in a female-dominated environment, being cared for by her mother, grandmother and her godparents. As a child, Tate suffered from an obsessive-compulsive disorder which centred on word association. For example, Tate was not able to leave a jumper on the floor or it might have brought misfortune to her mother whose name began with the letter "J" like jumper.
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Chav
Chav, (
/ˈtʃæv/ CHAV, also CHAVER) is a pejorative epithet commonly used, chiefly in the United Kingdom, to belittle. The term indicates a derogatory stereotype created in the British mass media to refer to working class youth subculture in England. The fashion is derived from American Hip hop. Those so termed tend to have a dislike of Goths and Emos as well as other 'alternative' subcultures.
The term has its origins in the Romani word chavi, meaning "child" (or "chavo", meaning "boy", or "chavvy", meaning "youth"). The derivative chavette has been used to refer to females. The adjectives "chavish" and "chavtastic" have been used in relation to items designed for or suitable for use by chavs.
The word in its current pejorative usage is recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary as first published in a Usenet forum in 1998 and first use in a newspaper in 2002.
The stereotype of a Chav includes wearing branded designer sportswear. Stereotypical attire might be accompanied by some form of gold jewelery otherwise termed 'bling'.
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Cher
Cher ( /ˈʃɛər/) (born Cherilyn Sarkisian; May 20, 1946) is an American recording artist, television personality, actress, director, record producer, and philanthropist. Referred to as the Goddess of Pop, she has won an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, three Golden Globes, and a Cannes Film Festival Award for her work in film, music, and television. She is the only person in history to receive all five awards. She began her career as a backup singer and came to prominence in 1965 as one-half of the pop rock duo Sonny & Cher with the success of their song "I Got You Babe". She subsequently established herself as a solo recording artist and became a television star in 1971 with The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, a variety show for which she won a Golden Globe. A well-received performance in the film Silkwood earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress of 1983. In the following years, she starred in a string of hit films including Mask, The Witches of Eastwick, and Moonstruck, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress of 1987.
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Cheryl Cole
Cheryl Ann Cole (née Tweedy; born 30 June 1983), often known professionally as Cheryl, is an English pop and R&B recording artist, songwriter, dancer and model. She rose to fame in late 2002 when she auditioned for the reality television show Popstars: The Rivals on ITV. The programme announced that Cole had won a place as a member of the girl group, Girls Aloud. Cole has been part of the group's twenty consecutive top-ten singles (including four number one singles) in the UK and five platinum albums (two of which went to number one) and earned five BRIT Award nominations from 2005 to 2010. In 2009, Girls Aloud won "Best Single" with their song "The Promise". In 2009, Girls Aloud announced their musical hiatus and Cole went on to release two solo albums, which both went to number one in the UK: 3 Words (2009) and Messy Little Raindrops (2010). She achieved a number of hits, including two number one singles: "Fight for This Love" and "Promise This". Cole is set to release her third solo album A Million Lights on the 18 June 2012, with lead single "Call My Name" being released on the 10 June 2012.
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Chris Moyles
Christopher David Moyles (born 22 February 1974) is an English radio and television presenter and author, who currently presents The Chris Moyles Show on BBC Radio 1 and Chris Moyles' Quiz Night on Channel 4.
Born in Leeds, he attended Mount St Mary's Catholic High School in Leeds and volunteered to work at WBHS (Wakefield's Broadcast to Hospitals Service). He has worked at various radio stations including Radio Luxembourg (under the pseudonym Chris Holmes) and Capital FM. Moyles moved to BBC Radio 1 in 1997 and has remained there ever since, presenting the early breakfast show, a Saturday morning show, the drive time show and currently, the breakfast show. On 7 September 2009 he became Radio 1's longest serving breakfast presenter. Moyles has become famous for his irreverent broadcasting style on Radio 1 and has been embroiled in numerous controversies, including homophobic and sexist accusations, due to statements he has made on the air and in the press. Despite that, Moyles' regular audience figures averages 8 million listeners per annum, and remains one of the more popular presenters on BBC Radio 1.
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Chrissie Hynde
Christine Ellen "Chrissie" Hynde (born 7 September 1951Akron, Ohio) is an American musician best known as the leader of the rock/new wave band the Pretenders. She is a singer, songwriter, and guitarist, and has been the only constant member of the band throughout its history.
Hynde is the daughter of a part-time secretary and a Yellow Pages manager. She graduated from Firestone High School in Akron, Ohio. She stated that "I was never too interested in high school. I mean, I never went to a dance, I never went out on a date, I never went steady. It became pretty awful for me. Except, of course, I could go see bands, and that was the kick. I used to go to Cleveland just to see any band. So I was in love a lot of the time, but mostly with guys in bands that I had never met. For me, knowing that Brian Jones was out there, and later that Iggy Pop was out there, made it kind of hard for me to get too interested in the guys that were around me. I had, uh, bigger things in mind."
Hynde was for some time interested in hippie counterculture, eastern mysticism, and vegetarianism. While attending Kent State University's Art School for three years, she joined a band called Sat. Sun. Mat., which included Mark Mothersbaugh, later of Devo (Hynde was on the campus during the infamous Kent State shootings; she knew Jeffrey Miller, one of those killed[citation needed].)
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Claudia Winkelman
Claudia Anne I. Winkleman (born 15 January 1972) is an English television presenter, film critic, radio personality and journalist.
Winkleman was born in Westminster, London, to a Jewish family, the daughter of Eve Pollard, former editor of the Sunday Express, and Barry Winkleman (born 1939), former publisher of The Times Atlas of the World. Her parents divorced when she was three; both remarried in 1979. Her stepfather is Sir Nicholas Lloyd, former editor of the Daily Express, and her half-sister, from her father's second marriage, to children's author Cindy Black, is actress Sophie Winkleman, wife of Lord Frederick Windsor. She has a younger half-brother, Oliver Lloyd, from her mother's second marriage, to Nicholas Lloyd.
Brought up in the London suburb of Hampstead, Winkleman was educated at the City of London School for Girls and Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, obtaining an MA Hons degree in History of Art.
Winkleman's first major television job was in 1991, on the regional discussion programme.Central Weekend. In 1992, she began frequently to appear in the long-running BBC series Holiday, and this continued throughout the mid-1990s. This culminated in a special documentary in which she travelled around the world for 34 days reporting from Japan, India, Costa Rica and Dubai.
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Claudia Winkleman
Claudia Anne I. Winkleman (born 15 January 1972) is an English television presenter, film critic, radio personality and journalist.
Winkleman was born in Westminster, London, to a Jewish family, the daughter of Eve Pollard, former editor of the Sunday Express, and Barry Winkleman (born 1939), former publisher of The Times Atlas of the World. Her parents divorced when she was three; both remarried in 1979. Her stepfather is Sir Nicholas Lloyd, former editor of the Daily Express, and her half-sister, from her father's second marriage, to children's author Cindy Black, is actress Sophie Winkleman, wife of Lord Frederick Windsor. She has a younger half-brother, Oliver Lloyd, from her mother's second marriage, to Nicholas Lloyd.
Brought up in the London suburb of Hampstead, Winkleman was educated at the City of London School for Girls and Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, obtaining an MA Hons degree in History of Art.
Winkleman's first major television job was in 1991, on the regional discussion programme.Central Weekend. In 1992, she began frequently to appear in the long-running BBC series Holiday, and this continued throughout the mid-1990s. This culminated in a special documentary in which she travelled around the world for 34 days reporting from Japan, India, Costa Rica and Dubai.
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Cliff Richard
Sir Cliff Richard, OBE (born Harry Rodger Webb; 14 October 1940) is a British pop singer, musician, performer, actor, and philanthropist. With his backing group The Shadows, Richard, originally positioned as a rebellious rock and roll singer in the style of Little Richard and Elvis Presley, dominated the British popular music scene in the pre-Beatles period of the late 1950s and early 1960s. His 1958 hit single "Move It" is often described as Britain's first authentic rock and roll song, and John Lennon once claimed that "before Cliff and the Shadows, there had been nothing worth listening to in British music." A conversion to Christianity and subsequent softening of his music later led to a more middle of the road pop image, sometimes venturing into gospel music.
Over a 53-year career, Richard has become a fixture of the British entertainment world, amassing many gold and platinum discs and awards, including three Brit awards and two Ivor Novello awards. He has had more than 130 singles, albums and EPs make the UK Top 20, more than any other artist and holds the record (with Elvis Presley) as the only act to make the UK singles charts in all of its first six decades (1950s–2000s). He has achieved 14 UK No. 1 singles (or 18, depending on the counting methodology) and is the only singer to have had a No. 1 single in the UK in six consecutive decades: the 1950s through to the 2000s (discounting digital downloads and counting only CDs, he had a UK No. 1 single in the 2000s). Richard is the biggest selling singles artist of all time in the UK, with total sales of over 21 million and has reportedly sold an estimated 250 million records worldwide.
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Colin Lane
Colin Stuart Lane (born 25 March 1965) is a comedian, actor, TV host, and professional show off, best known for being one-half of former comedy duo, Lano and Woodley.
Lane performed with fellow comedian Frank Woodley as part of the duo Lano and Woodley for a period of almost 20 years. The two met through theatresports in the mid-1980s and first performed together at an open mike night at the Prince Patrick Hotel in Collingwood, Victoria in 1987 along with their friend Scott Casley, calling themselves the Found Objects. Over the next six years, the trio performed in venues throughout Australia and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. They became semi-regulars on ABC TV's The Big Gig, a show known for boosting the careers of new comedy acts, had their own commercial radio show for six months and were part of the short-lived Seven Network sketch show The Comedy Sale. When in 1992 Casley moved away to Alice Springs, Woodley and Lane decided to continue as a duo, drawing their name from childhood nicknames.
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D'Israeli
Matt Brooker, whose work most often appears under the pseudonym D'Israeli (sometimes D'Israeli D'Emon D'Raughtsman), is a British comic artist, colorist, writer and letterer. Other pseudonyms he uses include "Molly Eyre" (a pun on Molière), for his writing, and "Harry V. Derci"/"Digital Derci" for his lettering work.
In 1988 he worked as the penciller on issues 7 to 12 of Mister X (volume two). His early work also includes the surreal Timulo, which appeared in Deadline magazine in 1989. Also in Deadline, he co-created Fatal Charm with Shane Oakley. In 1991 he co-created the cyberpunk series Lazarus Churchyard with Warren Ellis.
Kingdom of the Wicked, a graphic novel about a children's book writer who returns as an adult to the world he imagined as a child, only to find it at war, began a regular partnership with writer Ian Edginton. The pair have also created Scarlet Traces, a sequel of sorts to H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds in graphic novel form, and Leviathan, a steampunk horror series which appeared in 2000 AD, and contributed a two-part storyline to the Batman event No Man's Land. With Paul Cornell, he created XTNCT, a satirical series involving genetically modified dinosaurs, for the Judge Dredd Megazine.
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Dale Winton
Dale Winton (born 22 May 1955) is an English radio DJ and television presenter.
Winton's father, Gary, died when Winton was 13, on the day of Winton's bar mitzvah.[citation needed] Winton was brought up by his mother, actress Sheree Winton. Sheree was often referred to as 'the English Jayne Mansfield'. She committed suicide by drug overdose in 1976, after a lifelong battle with clinical depression.
Winton started DJ'ing in clubs in Richmond in 1972, where he met Steve Allen. The two have remained best friends since. From there he had a selection of menial jobs including selling time shares abroad. In 1982, Winton moved to London and began his entertainment career on the London club circuit, where he DJ'd at weekends. This led him to United Biscuits Industrial Radio where he did a variety of jobs, before getting his own morning show. From here he joined Radio Trent in Nottingham, where he presented a weekend show, moving to the weekday mid-morning show, before leaving in 1985, and going on to work at a number of other local radio stations.
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Daniel Craig
Daniel Wroughton Craig (born 2 March 1968) is an English actor best known for playing British secret agent James Bond in a 2006 reboot of the film series and its sequels.
Craig is an alumnus of the National Youth Theatre and graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and began his career on stage. His early on screen appearances were in the films Elizabeth, The Power of One and A Kid in King Arthur's Court, and on Sharpe's Eagle and Zorro in television. His appearances in the British films Love Is the Devil, The Trench and Some Voices attracted the industry's attention, leading to roles in bigger productions such as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Road to Perdition, Layer Cake and Munich.
Craig achieved international fame when chosen as the sixth actor to play the role of Bond, replacing Pierce Brosnan. His debut in Casino Royale was highly acclaimed and earnt him a BAFTA award nomination, with the film becoming the highest grossing in the series to date. Quantum of Solace followed two years later, with the third film Skyfall set for release in 2012, having been delayed due to MGM's financial troubles.
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Dara Ó Briain
Dara Ó Briain (Irish pronunciation: [ˈd̪ˠaɾˠə oː ˈbʲɾʲiənʲ], born 4 February 1972) is an Irish stand-up comedian and television presenter, noted for hosting topical panel shows such as The Panel, Mock the Week and Dara O Briain: School of Hard Sums .
He has also featured on Don't Feed the Gondolas, Have I Got News For You, QI, The Apprentice: You're Fired! and Stargazing Live. The Irish Independent described him as "Terry Wogan's heir apparent as Britain's 'favourite Irishman'". Writing for The Evening Standard, Bruce Dessau noted that "If you don’t laugh at Ó Briain, check your pulse, you must be dead."
Since January 2006, Ó Briain has taken part in the BBC Three Men in a Boat series, with Rory McGrath and Griff Rhys Jones. The series, broadcast in a pair of episodes around new year in 2006 and then every year since 2008, has consistently had around 3 million viewers.
In 2007, he was voted the 42nd greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups and again in the updated 2010 list as the 16th greatest stand-up comic.
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David Blaine
David Blaine (born David Blaine White; April 4, 1973) is an American illusionist and endurance artist. He is best known for his high-profile feats of endurance, and has made his name as a performer of street and close-up magic. He has set and broken several world records. Theatre owner James Nederlander as well as The New York Times have referred to Blaine as a modern day Houdini.
Blaine was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York and is of Puerto Rican descent on his father's side, and Russian Jewish on his mother's. His mother, Patrice Maureen White (1946–1995), was a school teacher living in New York, and his father William Perez was a Vietnam veteran. When he was four years old, he saw a magician performing magic in the subway. This sparked an interest in Blaine. He was raised by his single mother and attended many schools in Brooklyn. When he was ten years old, his mother married John Bukalo and they moved to Little Falls, New Jersey, where he attended Passaic Valley Regional High School. He has a half-brother named Michael James Bukalo. When he was 17 years old, Blaine moved to Manhattan, New York.
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David Cameron
David William Donald Cameron (pronunciation: /ˈkæmərən/; born 9 October 1966) is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Conservative Party. He represents Witney as its Member of Parliament (MP).
Cameron studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at Oxford, gaining a first class honours degree. He then joined the Conservative Research Department and became Special Adviser to Norman Lamont, and then to Michael Howard. He was Director of Corporate Affairs at Carlton Communications for seven years.
He was defeated in his first candidacy for Parliament at Stafford in 1997, but was elected in 2001 as the Member of Parliament for the Oxfordshire constituency of Witney. He was promoted to the Opposition front bench two years later, and rose rapidly to become head of policy co-ordination during the 2005 general election campaign. With a public image of a youthful, moderate candidate who would appeal to young voters, he won the Conservative leadership election in 2005.
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David Tennant
David Tennant (born David John McDonald; 18 April 1971) is a Scottish actor. In addition to his work in theatre, including a widely praised Hamlet, Tennant is best known for his role as the tenth incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who, along with the title role in the TV serial Casanova (2005) and as Barty Crouch, Jr., in the film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005).
Tennant was born in Bathgate, West Lothian, Scotland, the son of Essdale Helen (née McLeod) and The Rev. Alexander McDonald (known to family and friends as Sandy McDonald). He grew up with his brother Blair and sister Karen in Ralston, Renfrewshire, where his father was the local Church of Scotland minister. Tennant's maternal great-grandparents, William and Agnes Blair, were staunch Protestants from Derry in Ulster, the northern province of Ireland, and were among the signatories of the Ulster Covenant in 1912; William was a member of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland. Tennant's maternal grandfather, footballer Archie McLeod, met William and Agnes's daughter Nellie while playing for Derry City.
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Davina McCall
Davina Lucy Pascale McCall (born 16 October 1967) is an English television presenter, currently hosting Channel 4's game show Million Pound Drop Live and Sky1's reality talent show Got to Dance. She is best known as the presenter of reality series Big Brother during its run on Channel 4 between 1999 and 2010. Having fronted the shows weekly live eviction shows every summer since the beginning, she decided not to return as host after it was dropped by Channel 4 and relaunched by Channel 5 the following year.
After a difficult childhood, by her early twenties McCall had pursued various jobs including solo singer. Having recovered from a drug problem, she embarked on a career in television with a first job presenting for satellite music channel MTV in 1992. After further work on terrestrial channels she became a household name thanks to Big Brother, while also continuing to work with other hosting vehicles on various channels, from game shows to talent shows. From 2005 she has also been a regular co-presenter for the Comic Relief annual telethons.
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Dawn French
Dawn Roma French (born 11 October 1957) is a Welsh-born British actress, writer and comedienne. She is best known for starring in and writing for the comedy sketch show French and Saunders with comedy partner Jennifer Saunders and also for playing the lead role of Geraldine Granger in the sitcom The Vicar of Dibley. She has been nominated for seven BAFTA Awards and also won a Fellowship BAFTA along with Saunders.
French was born in Holyhead, Anglesey, Wales to English parents Denys Vernon French and Felicity "Roma" O'Brien of Irish origin from Plymouth. She was educated at the independent St Dunstan's Abbey School (now absorbed by Plymouth College) boarding school on North Road West in Plymouth, Devon, England. She has a brother, Gary French, who was born in 1955. Her father, Denys (5 August 1932 – 11 September 1977), was a member of the Royal Air Force, being stationed at RAF Valley. The RAF partly funded her private education. When her father was stationed at the former RAF Faldingworth, she attended Caistor Grammar School in Lincolnshire, boarding in the school's Lindsey house. She later won a debating scholarship that brought her to study at the Spence School in New York.
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Deborah Meaden
Deborah Sonia Meaden (born 11 February 1959) is a British business woman who ran a multi-million pound family holiday business, before completing a management buyout. She is best known for her appearances on the BBC Two programme Dragons' Den, where she has agreed investments in the Den of £1,605,000 in 26 businesses over the 6 series in which she has taken part to date.
Meaden was born in Somerset. Her parents divorced when she was young and her mother moved Deborah and her elder sister Gail to Brightlingsea in Essex. After her mother remarried, she had two more daughters (Cass and Emma) with Brian, the man Meaden calls Dad. Meaden went to the Godolphin School, Salisbury, for a brief period and then to Trowbridge High School.
On leaving school when she was 16, Meaden studied business at Brighton Technical College, after which she worked as a sales-room model in a fashion house. After graduation, she moved to Italy at 19 and set up a glass and ceramics export agency, which sold products to retailers including Harvey Nichols. The company failed after just 18 months.
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Declan Donnelly
Declan Joseph Oliver "Dec" Donnelly (born 25 September 1975) is one half of the English acting and TV presenting duo Ant & Dec, with the other being Anthony McPartlin. He came to prominence in the children's drama series Byker Grove and as one half of the pop music duo PJ & Duncan. Since then, Ant & Dec have had a very successful career as TV presenters, presenting programmes such as SMTV Live, Friends Like These, Pop Idol, I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, Britain's Got Talent, PokerFace, Push the Button Red or Black? and Text Santa. They returned to acting, starring in a 2002 Tribute to The Likely Lads and the 2006 film Alien Autopsy.
Donnelly is the youngest of seven children born to Irish emigrants, Anne and the now deceased Alphonsus Donnelly (died 2011). He has three brothers: Martin, Eamonn and Dermott (a Catholic priest), and three sisters: Patricia, Moyra and Camalia. His parents hailed from Draperstown, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, migrated to Newcastle, where they bought a house in 1958.
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Dermot O'Leary
Dermot O'Leary (born Seán Dermot Fintan O'Leary, Jr.) (born 24 May 1973) is a television and radio presenter. He established himself as a presenter of Big Brother's Little Brother on Channel 4 before moving on to The X Factor on ITV. O'Leary has also presented on the BBC and has his own radio show on BBC Radio 2. He is also notable for being the last person to introduce Michael Jackson in public before his death.
O'Leary was born in Colchester, Essex, England to Wexford-born Irish parents Sean and Marie,He is "extremely proud" of his Irish roots and he carries an Irish passport. He attended primary school in Marks Tey and later St Benedict's Catholic College in Colchester, graduating with two General Certificates of Secondary Education, and Colchester Sixth Form College.
O'Leary studied at Middlesex University, achieving a degree in Media and Television with Politics. He achieved a 2:2.[citation needed] Whilst at Middlesex University he developed an interest in comedy and was involved in various gigs in the students' union. He was also a member of the university's chess society.
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Derryn Hinch
Derryn Nigel Hinch (born 9 February 1944 in New Plymouth, New Zealand, now an Australian citizen) is an Australian media personality best known for his work on Melbourne radio. He is currently the host of 3AW's drive time radio show. He has also been a police reporter, foreign correspondent, newspaper editor, television show host, novelist and vintner.
Hinch has been married four times, including twice to Australian actress Jacki Weaver. He married Chanel Hayton in February 2006.
Hinch began his career at the age of 15 with the Taranaki Herald in New Zealand. In 1963, he came to Australia on the MV Wanganella and joined The Sydney Morning Herald. By 1968 he had become a foreign correspondent for the Fairfax organisation, and finally moved to New York as bureau chief. He remained in the United States for eleven years.
Hinch starred as The Criminologist in the Australian tour of The Rocky Horror Show plus, has appeared as himself in The Wog Boy with Nick Giannopoulos. He has also made cameo appearances on Fast Forward.
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Duncan Bannatyne
Duncan Walker Bannatyne, OBE (born 2 February 1949) is a Scottish entrepreneur, philanthropist and author. His business interests include hotels, health clubs, spas, media, TV, stage schools, property and transport. He is most famous for his appearance as a business angel on the BBC programme Dragons' Den. He has written five books; Anyone Can Do It, which sold more than 250,000 copies, was followed by Wake Up and Change Your Life, How to be Smart With Your Money, How to be Smart With Your Time, then by 43 Mistakes Businesses Make. He was appointed as an OBE for his contribution to charity.
Bannatyne was told by his mother that, because of the family's lack of money, he could not have a bicycle. To amend the problem he asked the local newsagents if he could have a paper round job and was told he could have one if he could get a list of 100 interested people. Bannatyne knocked on 151 doors exactly to create that list of one hundred customers. Armed with this list, he received the job and, months later, a second-hand bike.
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Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, (born 30 March 1945) is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and influential guitarists of all time. Clapton ranked second in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and fourth in Gibson's Top 50 Guitarists of All Time.
In the mid 1960s, Clapton departed from the Yardbirds to play blues with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. In his one-year stay with Mayall, Clapton gained the nickname "Slowhand". Immediately after leaving Mayall, Clapton formed Cream, a power trio with drummer Ginger Baker and bassist Jack Bruce in which Clapton played sustained blues improvisations and "arty, blues-based psychedelic pop." For most of the 1970s, Clapton's output bore the influence of the mellow style of J.J. Cale and the reggae of Bob Marley. His version of Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff" helped reggae reach a mass market. Two of his most popular recordings were "Layla", recorded by Derek and the Dominos, another band he formed and Robert Johnson's "Crossroads", recorded by Cream. A recipient of seventeen Grammy Awards, in 2004 Clapton was awarded a CBE for services to music. In 1998, Clapton, a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, founded the Crossroads Centre on Antigua, a medical facility for recovering substance abusers.
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Evan Davis
Evan Harold Davis (born 8 April 1962) is a British economist, journalist and presenter for the BBC. In October 2001, Davis took over from Peter Jay as the BBC's economics editor. He left this post in April 2008 to become a presenter on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. Evan Davis is also the presenter for the BBC venture-capitalist programme Dragons' Den, as well as The Bottom Line, a business conversation show, also on BBC Radio 4.
Davis grew up in Ashtead, Surrey.[citation needed] He attended Dorking County Grammar School, which in 1976 became The Ashcombe School, Dorking and later studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at St John's College, Oxford from 1981 to 1984, before obtaining an MPA at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.[citation needed] While at Oxford University, Davis edited Cherwell, the student newspaper.
Davis began work as an economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and while there he was briefly seconded to help officials work on early development of the Community Charge system of local government taxation (better known as the Poll Tax). In 1988 he moved to the London Business School, writing articles for their publication "Business Strategy Review". He returned to the Institute for Fiscal Studies in 1992, writing a paper on "Britain, Europe and the Square Mile" for the European Policy Forum which argued that British financial prosperity depended on being seen as a bridgehead to the European Union.
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Fern Britton
Fern Britton (born 17 July 1957) is an English television presenter, known as the former main co-presenter on the ITV magazine programme This Morning alongside Phillip Schofield. She left the show on 17 July 2009, her 52nd birthday.
Britton was born in Ealing, London to English actor Tony Britton and his wife Ruth Britton. She is the younger sister of scriptwriter Cherry Britton and older half sister of actor Jasper Britton. After spending her early life in Buckinghamshire, she proceeded to launch her career on Westward Television as a continuity announcer. She attended Dr Challoner's High School at Little Chalfont and the Central School of Speech and Drama where she trained in stage management.
After working with a touring theatre company, Britton commenced her broadcasting career in 1979 at Westward Television in Plymouth, the then-incumbent ITV regional company, as a continuity announcer and newsreader on the nightly local bulletin Westward Diary. When Westward lost its franchise in 1981, Britton moved to the local BBC headquarters as a presenter with Spotlight in the South West, before moving to BBC One's News After Noon where she became the BBC's youngest-ever national news presenter. She then went on to work at TVS in Southampton, co-hosting the South edition of the news programme Coast to Coast with Fred Dinenage, as well as Coast to Coast People, The Television Show, Magic Moments and as assistant presenter with Stefan Buczacki on one series of That's Gardening.
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Gareth Gates
Gareth Paul Gates (born 12 July 1984, Bradford, England) is an English singer-songwriter. He was the runner-up in the first series of the ITV talent show Pop Idol. Gates has sold over 3.5 million records in the UK. He is also known for having a stutter, and has talked about his speech impediment publicly. Gates used the McGuire Programme to manage the problem and is now a speech coach with the programme.
In 2009, Gates moved into musical theatre, playing the title role in the West End production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat at the Adelphi Theatre. He has recently completed an eighteen month stint as Marius, initially in the touring production and then in the West End production of Les Misérables. and takes up the role of Eddie in the new musical Loserville at the west Yorkshire Playhouse in June 2012
Gates was born in West Bowling, Bradford to father Paul and mother Wendy Broadbent (née Farry). He has three sisters, Nicola (born 1985), Charlotte (born 1991), and Jessica (born 1993) and grew up with his cousin James (born 1986) who was fostered by the family. His parents regularly foster other children.
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Garth Ennis
Garth Ennis (born 16 January 1970) is a Northern Irish comics writer, best known for the Vertigo series Preacher with artist Steve Dillon and his successful nine-year run on Marvel Comics' Punisher franchise. He has collaborated with artists such as Steve Dillon and Glenn Fabry on Preacher, John McCrea on Hitman, and Carlos Ezquerra on both Preacher and Hitman.
Ennis began his comic-writing career in 1989 with the series Troubled Souls. Appearing in the short-lived but critically acclaimed British anthology Crisis and illustrated by McCrea, it told the story of a young, apolitical Protestant man caught up by fate in the violence of the Irish 'Troubles'. It spawned a sequel, For a Few Troubles More, a broad Belfast-based comedy featuring two supporting characters from Troubled Souls, Dougie and Ivor, who would later get their own American comics series, Dicks, from Caliber in 1997, and several follow-ups from Avatar. Ennis was later critical of his writing debut, which he describes as "the kind of thing that was doing well at the time. (...) With hindsight, what Troubled Souls really represented was naked ambition. It was a direct attempt to get published. And that was the road that seemed most likely to lead me to success".
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Gary Barlow
Gary Barlow (born 20 January 1971) is an English singer-songwriter, pianist and record producer. He is frontman and lead vocalist of pop group Take That and the head judge on the The X Factor. Barlow is one of Britain's most successful songwriters. He has had two Number 1 singles and a Number 1 album as a solo artist, and has had sixteen top 5 hits, eleven Number 1 singles and seven Number 1 albums with Take That. He is also a six-time recipient of the Ivor Novello Award and has sold over 45 million records worldwide with Take That.
In Barlow's autobiography, he relates that his love of music began at an early age.
"I was one of those kids that's forever dancing in front of the TV looking at my reflection."
He said he enjoyed watching Top of the Pops on television, and when he was ten years old, he watched an episode of the programme in which Depeche Mode were performing their new single "Just Can't Get Enough". Barlow was mesmerised by the sound and decided he wanted a keyboard for Christmas. For the next few years, he spent most of his spare time teaching himself to play his favourite songs.
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Gary Lineker
Gary Winston Lineker, OBE (born 30 November 1960), is a former English footballer, who played as a striker. He is a sports broadcaster for the BBC, Al Jazeera Sports and Eredivisie Live. He remains England's top scorer in the FIFA World Cup finals, with ten goals.
Lineker began his football career at Leicester City and became known as a prolific goalscorer; despite failing to score in his first ten games, he finished as the First Division's joint top goalscorer in 1984–85 and earned his first England cap. He then moved to League Champions Everton where he remained a clinical finisher, scoring 40 goals in 57 games. His first team honours came at Barcelona, where he won the Copa del Rey in 1988 and the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1989. He returned to England in 1989, joining Tottenham Hotspur, and over three seasons he scored 67 goals in 105 games and won the FA Cup. Lineker's final club was Nagoya Grampus Eight and he retired in 1994 after two seasons at the Japanese side.
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George Michael
George Michael (born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou (Greek: Γεώργιος Κυριάκος Παναγιώτου); 25 June 1963) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. Michael rose to fame in the 1980s when he formed the pop duo Wham! with his school friend, Andrew Ridgeley. His first solo single, "Careless Whisper", was released when he was still in the duo and sold about six million copies worldwide.
As one of the world's best-selling music artists, Michael has sold more than 100 million records worldwide as of 2010. His 1987 debut solo album, Faith, has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide and made several records and achievements in the United States. Michael has garnered seven number one singles in the UK and eight number one hits on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US. In 2008, Billboard magazine ranked Michael the 40th most successful artist on the Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists list.
Michael has won numerous music awards throughout his 30-year career, including three Brit Awards—winning Best British Male twice, four MTV Video Music Awards, four Ivor Novello Awards, three American Music Awards, and two Grammy Awards from eight nominations.
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Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007, becoming the longest-serving holder of that office in modern history. Brown has been a Member of Parliament (MP) since 1983, for Dunfermline East until 2005, and currently for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath.
Brown became Prime Minister on 27 June 2007, after the resignation of Tony Blair and three days after becoming Leader of the governing Labour Party. His tenure ended on 11 May 2010, when he resigned as Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party. Brown was one of only three people to serve in the Cabinet continuously from Labour's victory in 1997 until its defeat in 2010, the others being Jack Straw and Alistair Darling.
Brown has a PhD in history from the University of Edinburgh and spent his early career working as a lecturer at a further education college and a television journalist. He has been a Member of Parliament since 1983; first for Dunfermline East and since 2005 for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. As Prime Minister, he also held the offices of First Lord of the Treasury and the Minister for the Civil Service.
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Graham Norton
Graham William Walker, known by his stage name Graham Norton, (born 4 April 1963) is an Irish actor, comedian, television presenter and columnist. He is the host of comedy chat programme The Graham Norton Show on BBC One in the UK and BBC America in the US. Hot Press has described him as "the 21st century's answer to Terry Wogan", with both men sharing an Irish background and the common link of being a BBC Radio 2 presenter and the BBC television commentator of the Eurovision Song Contest. Norton has won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Entertainment Performance on five occassions.
Norton was born in Clondalkin, a suburb of Dublin, but grew up in Bandon, County Cork, Ireland to a Protestant family. He was educated at Bandon Grammar School, in County Cork and then University College Cork but did not complete his studies.
In 1992 his stand-up comedy drag act in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe as a tea-towel clad Mother Teresa of Calcutta made the press when Scottish Television's religious affairs department mistakenly thought he represented the real Mother Teresa.
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Grant Morrison
Grant Morrison (born 31 January 1960) is a Scottish comic book writer, playwright and occultist. He is known for his nonlinear narratives and counter-cultural leanings, as well as his successful runs on titles like Animal Man, Doom Patrol, JLA, The Invisibles, New X-Men, Fantastic Four, Action Comics, All-Star Superman, and Batman.
Grant Morrison was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1960. His first published works were Gideon Stargrave strips for Near Myths in 1978 (when he was about 17), one of the first British alternative comics. His work appeared in four of the five issues of Near Myths and he was suitably encouraged to find more comic work. This included a weekly comic strip Captain Clyde, an unemployed superhero based in Glasgow, for The Govan Press, a local newspaper, plus various issues of DC Thomson's Starblazer, a science fiction version of that company's Commando title.
Morrison spent much of the early 1980s touring and recording with his band The Mixers, writing the occasional Starblazer for D. C. Thompson and contributing to various UK indie titles. In 1982 he submitted a proposal involving the Justice League of America and Jack Kirby's New Gods entitled Second Coming to DC Comics, but it was not commissioned. After writing The Liberators for Dez Skinn's Warrior in 1985, he started work for Marvel UK the following year. There he wrote a number of comic strips for Doctor Who Magazine, his final one a collaboration with a then-teenage Bryan Hitch, as well as a run on the Zoids strip in Spider-Man and Zoids. 1986 also saw publication of Morrison's first of several two- or three-page Future Shocks for 2000AD.
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Harry Enfield
Henry Richard "Harry" Enfield (born 30 May 1961) is a BAFTA-winning English comedian, actor, writer and director.
Born in Horsham, West Sussex, he is the oldest of three children, the son of English television, radio and newspaper journalist and presenter Edward Enfield. He has two sisters, Elizabeth (born 1966) and Lucy Katherine (born 1969). He was educated at the independent Arundale School in Pulborough, Dorset House School, Worth School, Collyer's Sixth Form College (all in West Sussex) and the University of York, where he was a member of Derwent College and read politics. He worked for a while as a milkman.
Enfield first came to public attention when appearing on Channel 4's Saturday Live as several different characters created with Paul Whitehouse. These quickly entered the national consciousness. Among these characters were Stavros, a Greek restaurant owner with fractured English; and Loadsamoney, an obnoxious character who constantly boasted about how much money he earned. Loadsamoney spawned a hit single in 1988 and a sell-out live tour. As a foil to Loadsamoney Enfield and Whitehouse created the Geordie "Bugger-All-Money" and in 1988 Enfield appeared as both characters during the Nelson Mandela Birthday Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium. In time Whitehouse and Enfield became disturbed that Loadsamoney was being seen in a positive light, rather than as a satirical figure, and they had him run over during a Comic Relief Red Nose Day show while leaving the studio after presenting host Lenny Henry with "the biggest cheque of the night"—a physically huge cheque for ten pence.
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Hermione Granger
Hermione Jean Granger ( /hərˈmaɪ.əni ˈdʒiːn ˈɡreɪndʒər/) is a fictional character and one of the three protagonists (the other two being Harry Potter and Ron Weasley) of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. She initially appears in the first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, as a new student on her way to Hogwarts. After Harry and Ron save her from a mountain troll in the girls' toilets, she becomes close friends with them and often uses her quick wit, deft recall, and encyclopaedic knowledge to help them. Rowling has stated that Hermione resembles her at a younger age, with her insecurity and fear of failure.
Hermione is a Muggle-born Gryffindor student, and the best friend of Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. J.K. Rowling states that she was born on 19 September 1979 and she was nearly twelve when she first attended Hogwarts. She is an overachiever who excels academically, and is described by Rowling as a "very logical, upright and good" character. Rowling adds that Hermione's parents, two Muggle dentists, are a bit bemused by their odd daughter but very proud of her all the same." They are well aware of the wizarding world and have visited Diagon Alley with her. Rowling has described the character of Luna Lovegood as the "anti-Hermione" as they are so different. Hermione's foil at Hogwarts is Pansy Parkinson, a female bully based on real-life girls who teased the author during her school days.
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J. K. Rowling
Joanne "Jo" Rowling, ( /ˈroʊlɪŋ/) OBE, FRSL (born 31 July 1965), known as J. K. Rowling, is a British novelist, best known as the author of the Harry Potter fantasy series. The Potter books have gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, sold more than 400 million copies to become the best-selling book series in history and been the basis for a popular series of films, in which Rowling had overall approval on the scripts as well as maintaining creative control by serving as a producer on the final instalment. Rowling conceived the idea for the series on a train trip from Manchester to London in 1990.
Rowling has led a "rags to riches" life story, in which she progressed from living on social security to multi-millionaire status within five years. As of March 2011[update], when its latest world billionaires list was published, Forbes estimated Rowling's net worth to be US$1 billion. The 2008 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £560 million ($798 million), ranking her as the twelfth richest woman in the United Kingdom.Forbes ranked Rowling as the forty-eighth most powerful celebrity of 2007, and Time magazine named her as a runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year, noting the social, moral, and political inspiration she has given her fans. In October 2010, J. K. Rowling was named 'Most Influential Woman in Britain' by leading magazine editors. She has become a notable philanthropist, supporting such charities as Comic Relief, One Parent Families, Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain, and Lumos (formerly the Children's High Level Group).
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Jack Dee
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.
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 and grew up in nearby Petts Wood 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).
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.
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Jade Goody
Jade Cerisa Lorraine Goody (5 June 1981 – 22 March 2009) was an English celebrity. She came into the public spotlight while appearing on the third series of the then Channel 4 reality TV programme Big Brother in 2002, an appearance which led to her own television programmes and the launch of her own products after her eviction from the show. In 2003, following her public appearance in Big Brother, Goody was voted by the public as the fourth worst Briton in the British TV station Channel 4's 100 Worst Britons as inspired by the BBC series 100 Greatest Britons.
In January 2007, she was a housemate in Celebrity Big Brother. During the show she was accused of racist bullying against Indian actress Shilpa Shetty. Following her eviction from the show, she admitted her actions had been wrong and she subsequently made many public apologies. In late 2007 and early 2008, several public polls put Goody in an unfavourable light.
In August 2008, she appeared on the Indian version of Big Brother, Bigg Boss, but withdrew early from the show and returned to the UK after being told she had cervical cancer. In February 2009, after the cancer metastasised, she was told that it was terminal. She married Jack Tweed on 22 February 2009 and died, one month later, in the early hours of 22 March 2009.Sky Living have aired four tribute shows to Goody from 2009 to 2011 documenting her early life to fame and her final months. The final ever episode of Big Brother on Channel 4 featured a 15-minute tribute to Goody hailing her as the ultimate Big Brother contestant.
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James Corden
James Kimberley Corden (born 22 August 1978) is an English actor, television writer, producer and presenter. He is co-creator and star of BBC comedy shows Gavin & Stacey and Horne & Corden, and acted in the 2009 film Lesbian Vampire Killers. He attracted attention for his performance in the lead role in the award-winning comedy play One Man, Two Guvnors, which transferred from the National Theater to the West End and then to Broadway.
Corden was born to Malcolm and Margaret Corden in Hillingdon, Greater London, and grew up in Hazlemere, Buckinghamshire. He has an older sister, Andrea Henry, and a younger sister, Ruth Corden.
Corden obtained his first part at eighteen years old in the musical Martin Guerre. He then starred in the British television series Fat Friends as Jamie Rymer, and played Gareth Jones in the series Boyz Unlimited. His television work includes a credited minor role as Razor #1 in Renford Rejects (Series 1 Episode 2, 1998), a role playing a bookish student in Teachers (Series 1, 2000) and he also made a guest appearance in Little Britain. Corden's film credits include Whatever Happened to Harold Smith? (1999) and Mike Leigh's All or Nothing (2002).
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James May
James Daniel May (born 16 January 1963) is an English television presenter, journalist and writer. He is best known for his role as co-presenter of the award-winning motoring program Top Gear alongside Jeremy Clarkson , and Richard Hammond.
On Top Gear, May has the nickname "Captain Slow" for his careful driving style, a love of small underpowered cars and habit of getting lost and distracted while driving. However, in a July 2010 episode of Top Gear he drove a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, reaching a speed of 417.6 kilometres per hour (259.5 mph). After his attempt the Bugatti test driver Pierre-Henri Raphanel took the car to 430 kilometers per hour (267.5 mph).
May has presented a variety of other programs on themes including science and technology, toys, cars, wine culture, and the plight of manliness in modern times. In addition he has released a variety of DVDs and books with similar themes, and wrote a weekly column for The Daily Telegraph's motoring section.
James May was born in Bristol, one of four children; he has two sisters and a brother. May attended Caerleon Endowed Junior School in Newport, then in Monmouthshire. He spent his teenage years in South Yorkshire where he attended Oakwood Comprehensive School in Rotherham and was a choirboy at Whiston Parish Church. He was also at school with Life On Mars and Ashes to Ashes star Dean Andrews. A keen flautist and pianist, he later studied music at Pendle College, Lancaster University. After graduating, May briefly worked at a hospital in Chelsea as a records officer, and had a short stint in Her Majesty's Civil Service.
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Jamie Hewlett
Jamie Christopher Hewlett (born 3 April 1968) is an English comic book artist and designer. He is known for being the co-creator of the comic Tank Girl and co-creator of the virtual band Gorillaz.
Raised in Horsham, West Sussex, Jamie Hewlett was a pupil at Tanbridge House School, the local mixed comprehensive. His artistic skill showed up early on – he contributed to the art work of a road safety campaign that ended up runner-up in a national television competition. Also, he worked part-time stacking shelves on the weekend at the local Payless DIY store.
While studying at Northbrook College, Worthing, Hewlett, Alan Martin and fellow student Philip Bond had created a fanzine called Atomtan. This brought him to the attention of Brett Ewins. After leaving college Hewlett and Martin were invited by Ewins to create material for a new magazine he was setting up with Steve Dillon in 1988.
The magazine was called Deadline and featured a mixture of comic strips produced by British creators, and articles on music and culture. Martin and Hewlett created Tank Girl, an anarchic strip about a teenage punk girl who drove a tank and had a mutant kangaroo for a boyfriend. The strip proved instantly popular and quickly became the most talked about part of Deadline. Hewlett's quirky style (he was a fan of Brendan McCarthy) proved popular and he started to work with bands such as Senseless Things and Cud providing covers for record releases; he also contributed artwork sporadically to Commodore User magazine.
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Jennifer Saunders
Jennifer Jane Saunders (born 6 July 1958) is an English comedienne, screenwriter, singer and actress. She has won two BAFTAs, an International Emmy Award, a British Comedy Award, a Rose d'Or Light Entertainment Festival Award, two Writers' Guild of Great Britain Awards, and a People's Choice Award.
She first came into widespread attention in the 1980s and early 1990s when she became a member of the Comic Strip after graduating from the Central School of Speech and Drama. With her comedy partner Dawn French, she writes and stars in their eponymous sketch show, French & Saunders, for which she and French received a BAFTA fellowship in 2009, and she has received international acclaim for writing and playing the lead role of Edina Monsoon in the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous.
She has guest starred in the American sitcoms Roseanne and Friends, and won the American People's Choice Award for voicing the wicked Fairy Godmother in DreamWorks' animated Shrek 2.
Saunders was born in Sleaford, Lincolnshire on 6 July 1958. Her mother was a biology teacher, and her father served as a pilot in the Royal Air Force (RAF), reached the rank of Air Marshal and later worked for British Aerospace. Because her father was in the armed forces, Saunders moved to different schools many times. She was educated from the age of five to 18 in boarding schools and then at St Paul's Girls' School, an independent school in west London. After school, she worked for a year in Italy as an au pair.
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Jeremy Clarkson
Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson (born 11 April 1960) is an English broadcaster, journalist and writer who specialises in motoring. He is best known for his role on the BBC TV show Top Gear along with co-presenters Richard Hammond and James May. He also writes weekly columns for The Sunday Times and The Sun.
From a career as a local journalist in Northern England, Clarkson rose to public prominence as a presenter of the original format of Top Gear in 1988. Since the mid-1990s, Clarkson has become a recognised public personality, regularly appearing on British television presenting his own shows and appearing as a guest on other shows. As well as motoring, Clarkson has produced programmes and books on subjects such as history and engineering. From 1998 to 2000 he also hosted his own chat show, Clarkson.
His opinionated but humorous tongue-in-cheek writing and presenting style has often generated much public reaction to his viewpoints. His actions both privately and as a Top Gear presenter have also sometimes resulted in criticism from the media, politicians, pressure groups and the public.
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Jimmy Carr
James Anthony Patrick "Jimmy" Carr (born 15 September 1972) is an Irish-born British comedian and humourist. He is known for his deadpan delivery, dark humour and his use of edgy one-liners. He is also a writer, actor and presenter of radio and television.
Carr moved to a career in comedy in 2000. After becoming established as a stand-up comedian, Carr began to appear in a number of Channel 4 television shows, most notably as the host of the panel show 8 out of 10 Cats. In Ireland he is known for appearances on The Panel and The Late Late Show.
Carr was born in Limerick, Ireland to parents Patrick James (born March 1945), a Roman Catholic and self-made millionaire who became treasurer for computer company Unisys, and Nora Mary (née Lawlor, 19 September 1943 – 7 September 2001), who died of pancreatitis in St Thomas' Hospital, London, aged 57. His parents married in 1970, separated in 1994, but never divorced. His father married Natasha in 2003. Carr has an older brother, Colin, and a younger brother, Patrick. Carr was educated at Royal Grammar School in High Wycombe. he also attended St Bernards's Catholic Grammar School also in Slough. Carr's father was not happy with the school so moved him to Burnham Grammar School
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Joanna Lumley
Joanna Lamond Lumley, OBE, FRGS (born 1 May 1946) is a British actress, voice-over artist, former-model and author, best known for her roles in British television series Absolutely Fabulous portraying Edina Monsoon's best friend, Patsy Stone, as well as parts in The New Avengers, Sapphire & Steel, and Sensitive Skin. Her distinctive voice has been supplied for animated characters, film narration, and AOL's "You have email" notification in the UK. She has spoken out as a human rights activist for Survival International and the Gurkha Justice Campaign, and is now considered a "national treasure" of Nepal because of her support. She is an advocate for a number of charities and animal welfare groups such as CIWF and Viva! She has won three BAFTA awards and a British Comedy Award.
Joanna Lamond Lumley was born on 1 May 1946 in Srinagar, in the princely state of Kashmir and Jammu, which was then part of British India. Her parents were Major James Rutherford Lumley, who served in the 6th Gurkha Rifles, a regiment of the British Indian Army, and Beatrice Rose Weir. They married in 1941. After the independence of India in 1947, the Lumleys relocated back to their home country of England[citation needed]; county Kent. The family also spent time in Malaya (now Malaysia). Lumley was educated at St Mary's Convent School in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, England, and afterwards attended the Lucie Clayton finishing school, after being turned down by the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the age of 16.
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Jonathan Ross
Jonathan Stephen Ross, OBE (born 17 November 1960) is an English television and radio presenter, best known for presenting the BBC One chat show Friday Night with Jonathan Ross from 2001 until he left the BBC in 2010. Ross began hosting a new chat show on ITV1 starting 3 September 2011. Ross also hosted his own radio show on BBC Radio 2, and acted as a film critic and presenter of the Film programme. Other regular roles have included being a regular panellist on the comedy sports quiz They Think It's All Over from 1999 to 2006, and presenting the annual British Comedy Awards from 1991 to 2007, and 2009 onwards.
Ross began his television career as a programme researcher, before débuting as a television presenter for The Last Resort with Jonathan Ross on Channel 4 in 1987. Over the next decade he had several radio and television roles, many through his own production company, Channel X. In 1995 he sold his stake in Channel X, and embarked on a career with the BBC. In 1999, Ross took over presenting the Film programme from Barry Norman, and also began presenting his own radio show, while two years later he began hosting Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. For the chat show, Ross won three British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards for Best Entertainment Performance, in 2004, 2006 and 2007. By 2006 Ross was believed to be the BBC's highest paid star. In 2005, Ross was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to broadcasting. Ross has been involved in controversies throughout his broadcasting career. As a result, in 2008 he wrote a semi-autobiographical work titled Why Do I Say These Things?, detailing some of his life experiences.
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Justin Hawkins
Justin David Hawkins (born 17 March 1975) is an English musician and singer-songwriter, best known for being the lead singer and lead guitarist of The Darkness, alongside his brother, guitarist Dan Hawkins. Heavily influenced by classic hard rock and heavy metal bands of the 1970s and 1980s (particularly Queen, Def Leppard and AC/DC), Hawkins is noted for his soaring falsetto and his charismatic persona, often displaying an exaggerated degree of flamboyance and camp humour on stage. He was also the lead singer and guitarist for the band Hot Leg, formed in 2008, and now on hiatus. Since 2005 he is also active in his synthpop alter ego British Whale.
Hawkins was born in Chertsey, Surrey, and grew up in Lowestoft, near Oulton Broad. He studied at Kirkley High School; he left part-way through his 'A' Levels to study Music Technology at Huddersfield Technical College while living in Sowerby Bridge near Halifax, West Yorkshire. His brother Dan was the lead guitarist of Stone Gods.
Before his success with The Darkness, Hawkins was known for writing and singing the "Schlomp" advert jingle for Ikea.
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Kate Moss
Kate Moss (born 16 January 1974) is an English model who is known for her waifish figure and popularising the heroin chic look in the 1990s. She is also known for her controversial private life, high profile relationships, party lifestyle, and drug use. Moss changed the look of modelling and started a global debate on eating disorders, and her role in size zero fashion. In 2007, she came 2nd on the Forbes top-earning models list, estimated to have earned $9 million in one year.
Moss was born in Addiscombe, Croydon, London to Linda Rosina (Shepherd), a barmaid, and Peter Edward Moss, a travel agent. Kate has a younger brother named Nick and a half-sister named Lottie (Charlotte) and half-brother. Moss' parents divorced when she was 13. She attended Ridgeway Primary School and Riddlesdown Collegiate, but most commonly known as Riddlesdown High School, in Purley. She was not noted for her academic success but she did excel at sport.
Moss was discovered in 1988 at the age of 14 by Sarah Doukas, the founder of Storm Model Management, at JFK Airport in New York City, after a holiday in the Bahamas. Moss's career began when Corinne Day shot black-and-white photographs of her, styled by Melanie Ward, for British magazine The Face when she was 16, in a photo shoot titled "The 3rd Summer of Love". Day discovered Kate Moss when she was a young and unknown model and described the pictures that she took of Moss as ‘dirty realism’ or ‘grunge’.Moss then went on to become the "anti-supermodel" of the 1990s[citation needed] in contrast to the "supermodels" of the moment[citation needed], such as Cindy Crawford, Elle Macpherson, Claudia Schiffer, and Naomi Campbell, who were known[citation needed] for their curvaceous and tall figures.
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Kevin Bridges
Kevin Bridges (born 13 November 1986) is a Scottish stand-up comedian.
Bridges began performing on the small stage when he left school shortly after his 17th birthday, doing stand-up comedy gigs at The Stand Comedy Club in Glasgow and then throughout the UK.Bridges said he was inspired to try stand up after reading Frank Skinner's autobiography. At 18 he reached the final of Channel 5's So You Think You're Funny competition at the Edinburgh Fringe. He performed at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Bridges appeared on Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow on the BBC, where he performed at the Edinburgh Playhouse.
In 2010, he 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.
His debut DVD, titled Kevin Bridges: The Story So Far... Live in Glasgow, was released on 22 November 2010.
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Kim Wilde
Kim Wilde (born Kim Smith, 18 November 1960) is an English pop singer, author and television presenter who burst onto the music scene in 1981 with the number 2 UK Singles Chart New Wave classic "Kids in America". In 1983, Wilde received the Brit Award for Best British Female. In 1987 she had a major hit in the US when her version of The Supremes' classic "You Keep Me Hangin' On" topped the charts. Starting in 1998, while still active in music, she has branched into an alternative career as a landscape gardener.
The eldest child of 1950s rock 'n' roller Marty Wilde (birth name Reginald Smith) and Joyce Baker, who was earlier a member of the singing and dancing group The Vernons Girls, Kim Smith was born in the West London suburb of Chiswick and attended Oakfield Preparatory School, in the Southeast London area of Dulwich. When she was nine, the family moved to Hertfordshire, where she was educated at Tewin and later Presdales School in Ware. In 1980, at age 20, she completed a foundation course at St Albans College of Art & Design and, as Kim Wilde, was signed to RAK Records by Mickie Most.
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Kimberley Walsh
Kimberley Jane Walsh (born 20 November 1981) is an English singer-songwriter, dancer, model, television presenter and actress. She is best known for being a member of girl group Girls Aloud, formed through ITV's reality television programme Popstars: The Rivals. The group has achieved twenty consecutive top ten singles (including four number ones) in the UK, five studio albums have all been certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), two of which went to number one in the UK, and accumulating a total of five BRIT Award nominations.
Walsh fronts the 2009 Autumn/Winter collection for the fashion chain New Look. In July 2010, Walsh became a presenter on music talk-show, Suck My Pop. Walsh's net worth was estimated at £6 million in April 2012.
Walsh was born in Bradford to Diane and John Walsh. She grew up with elder sister Sally, younger brother Adam and younger sister Amy in the suburb of Allerton. Sally appeared on the soap opera, Emmerdale, between 1997 and 2000, playing the role of Lyn Hutchinson.
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Kylie Mole
Mary-Anne Fahey (born 19 August 1955 as Mary-Anne Waterman) is an Australian actor, comedian and writer.
Fahey has starred in and written for comedy programs including The Comedy Company, Kittson, Fahey (the first Australian female-only sketch comedy program), Get a Life and One Size Fits All. She also had roles in The Dunera Boys, All the Rivers Run II, Celia, Lucky Break and SeaChange. She has also had roles in theatre including Mary Lives. She is most famous for her work on Channel Ten's The Comedy Company especially for her school girl character, Kylie Mole, and three year old "Jophesine", the Play School Sketches with Glenn Robbins and the Bedscene sketches with her then real-life husband Ian McFadyen.
In the 1980s she appeared in an advert for David Reid electronics which was promoting the Commodore Amiga 500.
Fahey's Kylie Mole character – a scowling schoolgirl – was so popular she published the best-selling novel My Diary by Kylie Mole and also released the Double A-Side single with tracks "So Excellent" and "I Go, I Go", which hit #8 on the Australian ARIA chart in November 1988. A music video for "So Excellent" was filmed. The Kylie Mole character was one of several iconic characters that appeared in the show, and her characterisation resonated especially with Australian youth. The Australian adoption of the word "bogan" was first popularised in the media by Kylie Mole, and other phrases she used also gained a wider currency.
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Lenny Henry
Lenworth George "Lenny" Henry, CBE (born 29 August 1958) is a British actor, writer, comedian and occasional television presenter.
Henry, the son of Jamaican immigrants, was born at Burton Road Hospital in Dudley in 1958. He was a pupil at St John's Primary School and later The Blue Coat School outside Dudley, before completing his school education at W.R. Tuson College (now Preston College).
His first manager was Robert Luff, who signed him in 1975 and gave him the opportunity to perform as part of the Luff-produced touring stage version of The Black and White Minstrel Show. In July 2009, Lenny Henry stated he was contractually obliged to perform and regretted his part in the show.
Shortly before this, on 17 December 1974, the then 16-year-old Henry had been voted Britain's top non-smoker for his declaration aimed at teenagers that smoking was not fashionable.
His earliest television appearance was on the New Faces talent show, which he won in 1975 with an impersonation of Stevie Wonder. The following year he appeared with Norman Beaton in LWT's sitcom The Fosters, Britain's first comedy series with predominantly black performers. His formative years were spent in working men's clubs, where his act was as a young black man impersonating white characters such as the Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em character Frank Spencer (whom he impersonated on New Faces). He also made guest appearances on television programmes including Celebrity Squares, Seaside Special and The Ronnie Corbett Show.
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Mark Buckingham
Mark Buckingham is a British comic book artist. He is better known for his work on Marvelman and Fables.
Born as Mark John Buckingham May 23, 1966 in Clevedon, United Kingdom. He initially started working professionally on strips and illustrations for a British satire magazine called The Truth in 1987 where he first worked with Neil Gaiman illustrating some of his articles. His American debut came the following year as inker on DC Comics Hellblazer, taking over as penciller from issue 18.
Some of Mark's earliest (non-professional) work appeared in early issues of the Clevedon Youth CND newsletter in the early 1980s (c.1982/83) in which he saterised members of the group in a fun and amusing manner. Copies of these are now very hard to find, although there a few still known to be in exsistance.
He is most famous for his work on Marvelman (Miracleman, in the USA), Hellblazer, and Fables, including a story in the original graphic novel 1001 Nights of Snowfall. His Marvel work includes inking Chris Bachalo's pencils on Generation X, Ghost Rider 2099, and penciling Paul Jenkins's run on Peter Parker: Spider-Man. For DC Comics, Buckingham has inked the two Death miniseries and was the original penciller on the Titans series. In the 1990s Mark shared a studio with Beano and Marvel artist Kev F Sutherland, working together on Marvel's Star Trek and Dr Strange.
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Mark Millar
Mark Millar (born 24 December 1969) is a Scottish comic book writer, known for his work on books such as The Authority, The Ultimates, Marvel Knights Spider-Man, Ultimate Fantastic Four, Civil War, Wanted, and Kick-Ass, the latter two of which have been adapted into feature films. In August 2007, he won the Stan Lee award at Wizardworld in Chicago.
Millar was born in Coatbridge. He has a brother, Bobby, who works at a special needs school.
Millar was inspired to become a comic writer after meeting Alan Moore at a signing session at AKA Books and Comics when he was a teenager in the late 1980s. However it was not until experiencing financial problems after his parents died that he decided to drop out of university and take up writing professionally.
His first job as a comic book writer came when he was still in high school, writing Trident's Saviour with Daniel Vallely providing art. Saviour combined elements of religion, satire and superhero action Millar later became known for.
During the 1990s, Millar then worked on titles such as 2000 AD, Sonic the Comic and Crisis. In 1993, Millar, Grant Morrison and John Smith created a controversial eight-week run on 2000 AD called The Summer Offensive. It was during this run that Millar and Morrison wrote their first major story together, the highly controversial strip Big Dave.
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Mathew Horne
Mathew Frazer Horne (born 6 September 1978) is an English actor, stand-up comedian, television presenter and narrator best known for appearing on several BBC sketch shows and sitcoms, most notably Gavin & Stacey portraying Gavin Shipman, The Catherine Tate Show, 20 Things to do Before You're 30, Teachers and Horne and Corden.
Horne was born in Burton Joyce, a village to the east of Nottingham, to Brian Horne and Glenis Reynolds. Horne has an elder brother, Daniel, and attended Burton Joyce Primary school, a small school not far from his home. He studied A level performing arts at Southwell Minster School, and a degree in Drama at the University of Manchester. Here, Horne met Bruce Mackinnon in the first few weeks of term; they realised that they shared a similar sense of humour, but did not write material together until the third year of their studies.
Horne began his career as a stand-up comedian and later became one half of the comedy duo Mat and MacKinnon – first performing at the Edinburgh Festival in 2000. He was spotted at the festival by Catherine Tate who invited him to perform in The Catherine Tate Show.
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Mel Smith
Melvin Kenneth "Mel" Smith (born 3 December 1952) is an English comedian, writer, film director, producer and actor. He is most famous for his work on the sketch comedy shows Not the Nine O'Clock News and Alas Smith and Jones along with his comedy partner Griff Rhys Jones.
Smith's father, Kenneth, was born in Tow Law, County Durham, and worked at a coal mine during the Second World War looking after the pit ponies. After the war he moved to London, and married Smith's mother, whose parents owned a greengrocer's store in Chiswick, West London. When the government legalised high street betting, he turned the shop into the first betting shop in Chiswick.
Smith was born and brought up in Chiswick, over the shop. He was educated at Hogarth Primary School, Chiswick and the private Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith and New College, Oxford.
While at Oxford University he produced The Tempest, and this led to his joining the Royal Court Theatre production team in London, and then Bristol Old Vic. He was also associate director of Sheffield's Crucible Theatre for two years. Later, he directed a theatre production of "Not in Front of the Audience".[citation needed]
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Melinda Gebbie
Melinda Gebbie is an American comics artist and writer, probably best known for Lost Girls, the three-volume graphic novel she produced in collaboration with writer (and now husband) Alan Moore, published by Top Shelf.
Melinda Gebbie was born in San Francisco. She became interested in comics in 1973, when she met writer/artist Lee Marrs at a publishers' fair. Formerly a fine artist, she contributed her first comic strip to Wimmen's Comix #3, the seminal all-women anthology published by Last Gasp. She wrote and drew short stories for Wimmen's Comix and many other anthologies, including Tits & Clits Comix, Wet Satin, and Anarchy Comics. In 1977 she completed her own solo book, Fresca Zizis.
In 1984 she moved to England to work on the animated film adaptation of Raymond Briggs' When the Wind Blows. Following this, she worked in a variety of illustration and office jobs and continued making short stories for anthologies such as Strip AIDS and Heartbreak Hotel. During this time she was briefly involved in an obscenity trial when Knockabout Comics was prosecuted by the UK's customs agency over the importation of 'pornographic' comics, including her Fresca Zizis. The verdict was that all the comics should be confiscated and burned; Fresca Zizis was made illegal to possess in the UK.
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Michael McIntyre
Michael Hazen James McIntyre (born 21 February 1976) is a British stand-up comedian. As well as his stand-up, he has performed on programmes such as Live at the Apollo and has his own programme, Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow.
McIntyre has released two stand-up DVDs; Live and Laughing in 2008 featured material from his first nationwide tour, while Michael McIntyre: Hello Wembley was released in November 2009 following a set at Wembley Arena. The former was the fastest selling debut stand-up DVD ever, and Hello Wembley is the fastest selling stand-up DVD in UK chart history, selling over a million copies. In 2009 McIntyre performed live to half a million people and won Best Live Stand-up at the British Comedy Awards.
In 2010, McIntyre released his autobiography, Life and Laughing: My Story, and also became the youngest-ever host of the Royal Variety Performance. He started as a judge on the fifth series of Britain's Got Talent in April 2011. He is to embark on his second nationwide tour in 2012.
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Mikey Robbins
Mikel Mason "Mikey" Robins (born 8 December 1961) is an Australian media personality, comedian and writer. He is best known for the satirical game show Good News Week, which ran on the ABC and Network Ten between 1996 and 2000, and returned again when the series was resurrected in February 2008.
Robins was born in Newcastle, New South Wales. He attended the University of Newcastle, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree with a double major in English and Drama. His father, Bill, sold hair-care products and worked for a time as an announcer at weekend surf lifesaving carnivals, which Robins says was his "introduction to talking into a microphone". When he was eight, Robins' father was diagnosed with cancer and died two years later. Robins claims he reacted to his father's death by eating more and giving up sports, pointing to this as the beginning of his battle with obesity. His obesity was a frequent source of comedy in his performances, but also held serious health implications. In 2003, he was diagnosed with extreme sleep apnoea which caused him to stop breathing around 70 times an hour while he slept, due in large part to his weight.[citation needed]
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Miranda Richardson
Miranda Jane Richardson (born 3 March 1958) is an English stage, film and television actor. She has been nominated for two Academy Awards, and has won two Golden Globes (with seven nominations) and a BAFTA (with seven nominations) during her career.
Richardson was born in Southport, Lancashire, to Marian Georgina (née Townsend), a housewife, and William Alan Richardson, a marketing executive. The second daughter of a middle class family, she revealed a talent for acting as a girl.
Richardson enrolled at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, where she studied alongside Daniel Day-Lewis, having started out with juvenile performances in Cinderella and Lord Arthur Savile's Crime at the Southport Dramatic Club. Richardson enjoyed a successful and extensive theatre career, making her stage debut in Moving at the Queen's Theatre in 1981. Soon afterwards, she appeared in repertory theatre, until she found recognition in the West End for a series of stage performances, ultimately receiving an Olivier Award nomination for her performance in A Lie of the Mind, and in 1996, she is cited as "the greatest actress of our time in any medium" by one critic after she appeared in Orlando at the Edinburgh Festival. She returned to the London stage in May 2009 to play the lead role in Wallace Shawn's new play, Grasses of a Thousand Colours at the Royal Court Theatre.
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Mitchell and Webb
Mitchell and Webb are a British comedy double act, composed of David Mitchell (born 14 July 1974) and Robert Webb (born 29 September 1972). They are best known for starring in the Channel 4 sitcom Peep Show and their award-winning sketch show That Mitchell and Webb Look. The duo first met at the Footlights in 1993 and collaborated for the 1995 Revue whilst studying at Cambridge University.
After graduating from university, the duo did two-man shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and some sketch writing, including a series of Big Train and also for Armstrong and Miller's eponymous show. Their big break came in 2000 when they joined the writing team for the BBC Two sketch show Bruiser. The following year, the short-lived Play UK channel invited them to write their own sketch show, The Mitchell and Webb Situation. Despite the low ratings of the channel, the show was reasonably well-received by viewers. After the success, they wrote and starred in the Radio 4 sketch show, That Mitchell and Webb Sound – which was later adapted for television on BBC Two as That Mitchell and Webb Look. The first series of That Mitchell and Webb Look won the BAFTA for "Best Comedy Programme" in 2007.
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Natalie Cole
Natalie Maria Cole (born February 6, 1950) is an American singer, songwriter and performer. The daughter of jazz legend Nat King Cole, Cole rode to musical success in the mid-1970s as an R&B artist with the hits "This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)", "Inseparable" and "Our Love". After a period of failing sales and performances due to a heavy drug addiction, Cole reemerged as a pop artist with the 1987 album, Everlasting, and her cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Pink Cadillac". In the 1990s, she re-recorded standards by her father, resulting in her biggest success, Unforgettable... with Love, which sold over seven million copies and also won Cole numerous Grammy Awards.
Natalie Cole was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of crooner Nat King Cole and former Duke Ellington Orchestra singer Maria Cole. Raised in the affluent Hancock Park district of Los Angeles; regarding her childhood, Cole has referred to her family as "the black Kennedys" and was exposed to many great singers of jazz, soul, and blues. At the age of six Natalie sang on her father's Christmas album and later began performing at age 11.
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Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard Gaiman ( /ˈɡeɪmən/; born 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book. He has won numerous awards, including Hugo, Nebula, Bram Stoker, Newbery Medal, and Carnegie Medal in Literature. He is the first author to win both the Newbery and the Carnegie medals for the same work.
Gaiman's family is of Polish and other Eastern European Jewish origins; his great-grandfather emigrated from Antwerp before 1914 and his grandfather eventually settled in the Hampshire city of Portsmouth and established a chain of grocery stores. His father, David Bernard Gaiman, worked in the same chain of stores; his mother, Sheila Gaiman (née Goldman), was a pharmacist. He has two younger sisters, Claire and Lizzy. After living for a period in the nearby town of Portchester, Hampshire, where Neil was born in 1960, the Gaimans moved in 1965 to the West Sussex town of East Grinstead where his parents studied Dianetics at the Scientology centre in the town; one of Gaiman's sisters works for the Church of Scientology in Los Angeles. His other sister, Lizzy Calcioli, has said, "Most of our social activities were involved with Scientology or our Jewish family. It would get very confusing when people would ask my religion as a kid. I’d say, 'I’m a Jewish Scientologist.'" Gaiman says that he is not a Scientologist, and that like Judaism, Scientology is his family's religion.
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Nena
Gabriele Susanne Kerner (born 24 March 1960), better known by her stage name Nena, is a German singer and actress. She rose to international fame in 1983 with the New German Wave song "99 Luftballons". In 1984, she re-recorded this song in English as "99 Red Balloons".Nena was also the name of the band with whom she released the song. With the re-recording and subsequent release of some of her old songs, her career re-emerged in 2002. In 2007, she co-founded the school "Neue Schule Hamburg".
Gabriele Susanne Kerner was born on 24 March 1960 in Hagen, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany, while her family lived in the nearby town of Breckerfeld. She spent the earliest part of her childhood in Breckerfeld and later lived in Hagen. She acquired her nickname, based on the Spanish word "nena" (colloquial for "niña"), or "little girl", at the age of three, while on a vacation to Spain with her parents. In 1977 she left high school before graduation, and in the three following years she was trained as a goldsmith.[citation needed]
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Neneh Cherry
Neneh Mariann Cherry (born Neneh Mariann Karlsson; 10 March 1964) is a Swedish singer-songwriter, rapper, and occasional DJ and broadcaster. Blending hip hop with other influences, Cherry experienced mainstream success with several of her recordings.
Cherry was born in Stockholm to a Sierra Leonean father, drummer Amahdu Jah, and a Swedish mother, painter and textile artist Monica Karlsson, later known as Moki Cherry. Her stepfather Don Cherry, an American jazz musician, helped raise her since birth and she took his surname. Through her father, she is the half-sister of singer Titiyo and record producer Cherno Jah, and through her mother, she is the half-sister of musician Eagle-Eye Cherry. She has a stepsister, violinist Jan Cherry, and a stepbrother, jazz musician David Ornette Cherry.
During the first years of her life, Cherry lived in a hippie commune just outside the small town of Hässleholm. The family later moved to Pudsey, England, and in the early 1970s, they lived in an apartment on East Ninth Street in New York. At the age of 14, Cherry dropped out of school and moved to London.
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Noel Edmonds
Noel Ernest Edmonds, (born 22 December 1948) is an English broadcaster and executive, who made his name as a DJ on BBC Radio 1 in the UK. He has presented many light entertainment television programmes, including Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, Top of the Pops, The Late, Late Breakfast Show, Telly Addicts, Noel's Saturday Roadshow and Noel's House Party. He currently presents the Channel 4 game show Deal or No Deal and the Sunday edition of Sky1's Are You Smarter Than A Ten Year Old? and previously the topical Sky1 show, Noel's HQ.
The son of a headmaster who worked in Hainault, Edmonds attended Glade Primary School and Brentwood School. He was offered a place at the University of Surrey but turned it down in favour of a job as a newsreader on Radio Luxembourg, which was offered to him in 1968 after he sent tapes to pirate radio stations. In 1969, he moved to BBC Radio 1 where he began by recording trailers for broadcasts and filling in for absent DJs, such as Kenny Everett. In April 1970, Edmonds began his own two-hour Saturday afternoon programme, broadcasting from 1pm-3pm, before replacing Kenny Everett on Saturday mornings from 10am-12pm in July of that year. In October 1971 he was moved to a Sunday morning slot from 10am-12pm before being promoted to Radio 1's prestigious breakfast programme from June 1973 to April 1978, taking over from Tony Blackburn. Edmonds moved back to Sunday mornings from 10am-1pm in 1978 and also presented Talkabout, an hour long talk show broadcast on Thursday evenings.
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Noel Fielding
Noel Fielding (born 21 May 1973) is a British surrealist, comedian, actor, artist, DJ and musician. He is known for his role as Vince Noir in The Mighty Boosh, which he co-wrote with comedy partner Julian Barratt, and as a team captain on the music panel show Never Mind the Buzzcocks. His solo comedy sketch show Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy began broadcasting in January 2012 on the UK's E4.
Born in Westminster, London, Fielding performed regularly as a stand-up comedian during the late 1990s, and appeared repeatedly on the television stand-up showcase Lee Mack's Gas. His highly animated stand-up routine included surreal stories, physical comedy, characters, and songs, much like his later work in The Mighty Boosh.
In 2010, Fielding was to perform a solo tour across the country. It was cancelled, however, so he could concentrate on writing The Mighty Boosh film and album with Barratt. Fielding announced via Twitter that he was too busy to do the tour.
In 2010, Fielding took part in Channel 4's Comedy Gala, a benefit show held in aid of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital and filmed live at the O2 Arena in London on 30 March.
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Patrick Barlow
Patrick Barlow (born 18 March 1947) is an English actor, comedian and playwright. His comedic alter ego, Desmond Olivier Dingle, is the founder, Artistic Director and Chief Executive of the two-man National Theatre of Brent, which has performed on stage, on television and on radio.
Barlow is the scriptwriter, as well as lead performer, in many National Theatre of Brent productions, in particular All the World's a Globe (1987), Desmond Olivier Dingle's Compleat Life and Works of William Shakespeare (1995) and The Arts and How They Was Done (2007). In non-Theatre of Brent performances, he wrote and played in the 4-part situation comedy for radio called The Patrick and Maureen Maybe Music Experience which ran for four weeks from January 1999.
He played the part of Om in the radio adaption of Terry Pratchett's Small Gods (2006), which was adapted by Robin Brooks.
Barlow played Bob whose character was besotted with his co-star Imelda Staunton, having already overcome unrequited love for another character, called Sarah (initially mistaken as Jacinta) who delivered the sandwiches in Is it Legal? (1996–1998), and played the part of the vicar in Jam & Jerusalem. He has also written and directed his National Theatre of Brent material for television, and played the part of Max in series 2 and the 2004 special of Absolutely Fabulous.
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Patsy Palmer
Patsy Palmer (born Julie Anne Harris; 26 May 1972 in Bethnal Green, London) is an English actress and glamour model. Palmer made an early television appearance on the children's drama show Grange Hill, but is best known for playing Bianca Jackson in the popular British television soap opera EastEnders. Originally in the cast from 1993–1999, Palmer returned to EastEnders in April 2008. She has also appeared in a number of TV dramas, and released an autobiography, All of Me, in 2007. She lives with her husband and four children in Brighton, East Sussex, UK.[citation needed]
Patsy Palmer was born and grew up in Bethnal Green, East London. She attended Columbia Primary School and then Haggerston Girls Secondary School.
She was brought up along with her two elder brothers, Albert and Harry, by her mother Pat. It was her mother who first spotted her acting talent and encouraged her to go to Anna Scher's famous acting school in London (where many other EastEnders stars such as Sid Owen, Gillian Taylforth, Susan Tully, Phil Daniels, Jake Wood and Adam Woodyatt also trained). Palmer was bullied at school, and has said that acting was a form of escape.
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Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM (born 18 June 1942) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of the Beatles (1960–1970) and Wings (1971–1981), he has been described by Guinness World Records as "The Most Successful Composer and Recording Artist of All Time", with 60 gold discs and sales of over 100 million albums and 100 million singles. With John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, he gained worldwide fame as a member of the Beatles, and with Lennon formed one of the most celebrated songwriting partnerships of the 20th century. After leaving the Beatles, he began a solo career and later formed the band Wings with his first wife, Linda Eastman, and singer-songwriter Denny Laine.
According to the BBC, his Beatles song "Yesterday" has been covered by over 2,200 artists—more than any other song. Wings' 1977 release, "Mull of Kintyre", became one of the best-selling singles ever in the UK, and he is "the most successful songwriter" in UK chart history, according to Guinness. As a songwriter or co-writer, he is included on thirty-one number one titles on the Billboard Hot 100, and as of 2012 he has sold over 15.5 million RIAA certified units in the United States.
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Paul Whitehouse
Paul Whitehouse (born 17 May 1958) is a Welsh actor, writer and comedian. He became known for his work with Harry Enfield and as one of the stars of the popular BBC sketch show, The Fast Show. In a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, he was in the top 50 comedy acts voted for by comedians and comedy insiders. Johnny Depp described Paul Whitehouse as "the greatest actor of all time".
Whitehouse was born in Stanleytown in the Rhondda Valley, Glamorgan, Wales. His father worked for the National Coal Board and his mother was a singer with the Welsh National Opera. The family moved to Enfield when he was four years old, which led to him discovering his talent for mimicry:
"At school I didn’t say a word for the first four weeks - I called it my Silent Month. I think it was because everyone was speaking so differently from how it had been in Wales. Then, after four weeks, I came home one day and said, ‘Muumm, I wanna go to Sarfend!’ For her that was the end because I had lost my lovely Welsh lilt. So I became very conscious of speech and the effects it can have. But when I went back to Wales I would start talking all Welsh, ‘lyke that you see’ before going all Alf Garnett while coming back the other way.”
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Peter K. Hogan
Peter K. Hogan is a British comics creator who started out as editor of cult political British comics Crisis and Revolver in the late 1980s and early 1990s, before working for 2000 AD and American comic book publishers Vertigo and America's Best Comics.
Hogan first worked as Commissioning Editor for Eel Pie Publishing from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. He managed the Magic Bus Bookstore in Richmond assisted by his then wife, Ruth, until its closure in 1982. His known associates at that time were Dave Marsh and Patrick Humphries, Rock Music journalists. He also was a contributing writer to a biography about The Monkees pop group and a movie/DVD correspondent for Uncut magazine. Hogan is the brother-in-law of noted UK comic artist/typographer/design guru Rian Hughes.[citation needed]
After Revolver folded, Hogan became a scriptwriter for the 2000 AD comic, working on short story series Vector 13 and Tharg's Dragon Tales, as well as reinventing the long-running Strontium Dog series as Strontium Dogs and supervising the Durham Red spin-off series. Hogan also had a short stint working on Sam Slade, Robo-Hunter. He also created the gentle fantasy Timehouse.
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Peter Kay
Peter John Kay (born 2 July 1973) is an English comedian, writer, actor, director and producer from Lancashire. His work includes That Peter Kay Thing (2000), Phoenix Nights (2001), Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere (2004), Britain's Got the Pop Factor... (2008) and other independent productions which have included two sell out tours. Kay has sold over 10 million DVDs, a UK record for a comedian.
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Ray Reach
Raymond Everett Reach, Jr. (born August 3, 1948) is an American pianist, vocalist and educator residing in Birmingham, Alabama, now serving as Director of Student Jazz Programs for the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, director of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame All-Stars and President and CEO of Ray Reach Music and Magic City Music Productions. In addition, he is an accomplished guitarist, arranger, composer, conductor and music producer. Although he has composed, arranged and performed in a variety of genre (including classical, pop, R & B, gospel, contemporary Christian and jazz), he is perhaps best known for his work in the jazz idiom, combining straight-ahead jazz piano stylings with Sinatra-style vocals. Like many male jazz vocalists, such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Vic Damone, Mel Torme, Harry Connick, Jr. and Michael Bublé, Ray's repertoire centers around the classic popular standards and jazz standards of the Great American Songbook. However, Ray differs from many of his jazz vocal colleagues in the fact that he does most of his own arrangements and accompanies himself on the piano.
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Richard Curtis
Richard Whalley Anthony Curtis, CBE (born 8 November 1956) is a New Zealand-born British screenwriter, music producer, actor and film director, known primarily for romantic comedy films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones's Diary, Notting Hill, Love Actually and The Girl in the Café, as well as the hit sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean and The Vicar of Dibley. He is also the founder of the British charity Comic Relief.
Curtis was born in Wellington, New Zealand, the son of Glyness S. and Anthony J. Curtis, who was an executive at Unilever. Curtis and his family lived in several different countries during his childhood, including Sweden and the Philippines. Part of the family still lives in Sydney. Curtis has lived in England since he was 11. He began school at Papplewick School, Ascot (as did his younger brother Jamie). For a short period in the 1970s Curtis lived in Warrington, where he attended Appleton Grammar School, before he won a scholarship to the prestigious Harrow School in London. He achieved a first-class degree in English Language and Literature at Christ Church, Oxford, and it was at Oxford that he met, and began working with, Rowan Atkinson.
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Richard Hammond
Richard Mark Hammond (born 19 December 1969) is an English broadcaster, writer, and journalist most noted for co-hosting the car programme Top Gear with Jeremy Clarkson and James May, as well as presenting series 1–4 of Brainiac: Science Abuse on Sky 1. Since 2009, Hammond has co-hosted Total Wipeout with Amanda Byram on BBC One which has since been cancelled.
Hammond is currently presenting Planet Earth Live alongside Julia Bradbury.
Hammond was born in Solihull and is the grandson of workers in the Birmingham automobile industry. In the mid-1980s Hammond moved with his family (mother Eileen, father Alan, and younger brothers Andrew, writer of the 'Crypt' Series, and Nicholas) to the North Yorkshire cathedral city of Ripon where his father ran a probate business in the market square. Originally a pupil of Solihull School, a fee-paying boys' independent school, he moved to Ripon Grammar School, and from 1987 to 1989 attended Harrogate College of Art and Technology. After his graduation he worked for several radio stations, including Radio Cleveland, Radio York, Radio Cumbria, Radio Leeds, Radio Newcastle and Radio Lancashire, before auditioning for Top Gear.
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Robbie Williams
Robert Peter "Robbie" Williams (born 13 February 1974) is an English singer-songwriter, vocal coach and occasional actor. He is a member of the pop group Take That.
Williams rose to fame in the band's first run in the early- to mid-1990s. After many disagreements with the management and certain group members, Williams left the group in 1995 to launch his solo career. On 15 July 2010, it was announced he had rejoined Take That and that the group intended to release a new album in November 2010 which became the second fastest-selling album of all-time in UK chart history and the fastest-selling record of the century.
Williams has sold over 70 million records worldwide, which ranks him among the best-selling music artists worldwide. He is the best-selling British solo artist in the United Kingdom and the best selling non-Latino artist in Latin America. Six of his albums are among the top 100 biggest-selling albums in the United Kingdom. He has also been honoured with seventeen BRIT Awards—more than any other artist—and seven ECHO Awards. In 2004, he was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame after being voted as the "Greatest Artist of the 1990s."
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Robin Gibb
Robin Hugh Gibb, CBE (22 December 1949 – 20 May 2012) was a singer and songwriter, best known as a member of the Bee Gees, co-founded with his fraternal twin brother Maurice and older brother Barry. Their younger brother Andy was also a singer.
Born in the Isle of Man to English parents, the family later moved to Manchester before settling in Brisbane, Australia. Gibb began his career as part of the family trio and when the group found their first success they returned to the United Kingdom where they achieved worldwide fame. In 2004, the Bee Gees received their CBEs from the Prince of Wales at Buckingham Palace for their "contribution to music". With record sales estimated in excess of 200 million units, the Bee Gees became one of the most successful pop groups of all time. Music historian Paul Gambaccini described Gibb as "one of the major figures in the history of British music" and "one of the best white soul voices ever".
After a career spanning six decades, Gibb last performed on stage in February 2012 supporting injured British servicemen and women at a charity concert at the London Palladium. On 20 May 2012, Gibb died at the age of 62 from liver and kidney failure.
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Robin Williams
Robin McLaurin Williams (born July 21, 1951) is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork & Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the 1997 film Good Will Hunting. He has also won two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globes, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and five Grammy Awards.
Williams was born in Chicago, Illinois. His mother, Laura McLaurin (née Smith, 1922–2001), was a former model from New Orleans, Louisiana. His father, Robert Fitzgerald Williams (September 10, 1906 – October 18, 1987), was a senior executive at Ford Motor Company in charge of the Midwest region. His maternal great-great-grandfather was senator and Mississippi governor Anselm J. McLaurin. Williams is of English, Welsh, Irish, and French ancestry. He was raised in the Episcopal Church (his mother practiced Christian Science). He grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where he was a student at the Detroit Country Day School, and later moved to Woodacre, Marin County, California, where he attended the public Redwood High School. Williams studied at Claremont McKenna College (then called Claremont Men's College) for four years. He has two half-brothers: Todd (who died August 14, 2007) and McLaurin.
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Ron Weasley
Ronald Bilius "Ron" Weasley is a fictional character and one of the three protagonists (the other two being Harry Potter and Hermione Granger) of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. His first appearance was in the first book of the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone as the best friend of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. He is a member of the Weasley family, a pure blood family, who reside in "The Burrow" outside Ottery St. Catchpole. Along with Harry and Hermione, he is a member of the Gryffindor house. Ron is present in most of the action throughout the series due to his friendship with Harry.
According to J. K. Rowling, Ron was among the characters she created "the very first day". Ron is inspired by Rowling's best friend Sean Harris (to whom Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is dedicated), but she has clearly stated that she "never set out to describe Sean in Ron, but Ron has a Sean-ish turn of phrase." Like Harris is to Rowling, Ron is "always there" when Harry needs him. The character of Ron fits many of the stereotypes expected of the sidekick; he is often used as comic relief, is loyal to the hero, and lacks much of the talent Harry possesses, at least in terms of magical power. However, he has demonstrated bravery several times, such as playing 'real wizard's chess' in the first book, and entering into the Forbidden Forest with Harry during the second book despite his arachnophobia.
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Ronan Keating
Ronan Patrick John Keating (born 3 March 1977) is an Irish recording artist, singer-songwriter, musician, and philanthropist. Keating debuted on the professional music scene alongside Keith Duffy, Mikey Graham, Shane Lynch and Stephen Gately, in 1994 as the lead singer of Boyzone. His solo career started in 1999, and resulted in 9 albums. Keating gained worldwide attention when his single "When You Say Nothing at All" was featured in the film Notting Hill and peaked at number one in several countries. As a solo artist, Keating has sold over 22 million records worldwide, and in Australia he is best known as a judge on The X Factor.
Keating has worked as a charity campaigner most notably for the Marie Keating Foundation, a foundation that raises awareness for breast cancer. It is named after his mother, who died of the disease in 1998. Keating's fortune is around €15 million.
Ronan Keating was born on 3 March 1977, the youngest of five children. He grew up on the Northside of Dublin and Co Meath. His father Gerry Keating was a lorry driver; his mother Marie was a hairdresser and had her own salon in Dunshaughlin, Co Meath. He has one sister: Linda, and three brothers: Ciaran, Gerard and Gary. He was a track and field athlete and represented Ireland in several tournaments, winning the All Ireland under-13 200m title. He also worked as an assistant in a shoe shop just as his siblings emigrated to the United States.
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Ronnie Corbett
Ronald Balfour "Ronnie" Corbett, CBE (born 4 December 1930) is a Scottish actor and comedian who had a long association with Ronnie Barker in the television comedy series The Two Ronnies. He achieved prominence in Sir David Frost's 1960s satirical comedy programme, The Frost Report and later starred in the sitcoms Sorry! and No - That's Me Over Here!
Corbett was born in Edinburgh in 1930, the son of London-born Annie Elizabeth (Main) and William Balfour Corbett, master baker. He has a brother about six years younger, and a sister about ten years younger than himself. Corbett was educated at the Royal High School in the city, but did not attend university. After leaving school, he decided he wanted to be an actor while performing in amateur theatricals at a church youth club. However, his first job was with the Ministry of Agriculture. He then did national service with the RAF, during which he was the shortest commissioned officer in the British Forces. After National Service he moved to London to act, and started his career by playing schoolboy roles in films. At 5 ft 1 in (1.55 m) tall, Corbett was suited to playing younger than his years. References to his height frequently crop up in his self-deprecating humour.
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Ross Kemp
Ross James Belshaw Kemp (born 21 July 1964) is a BAFTA award-winning English actor, author and journalist, who rose to prominence in the role of Grant Mitchell in the BBC soap opera, EastEnders. Since 2006, Kemp has received international recognition as an investigative journalist for his critically acclaimed and award-winning documentary series Ross Kemp on Gangs.
Before becoming publicly known, Kemp made a TV commercial for Kellogg's Fruit 'n Fibre breakfast cereal. His first credited television appearance was in 1986, playing Graham Lodsworth in the ITV soap opera Emmerdale Farm (now Emmerdale). He was infamously thrown off set of Emmerdale after reportedly stubbing his toe on a prop and proceeding to violently attack the prop and claim that all props should be 'burnt alive' . He then ironically made guest appearances in episodes of London's Burning where he was seen throwing numerous props into the on-set fire, and Birds of a Feather. He was in a film called Playing Away in 1986 in a minor role alongside Neil Morrissey.
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Rowan Atkinson
Rowan Sebastian Atkinson (born 6 January 1955) is a British actor, comedian, and screenwriter. He is most famous for his work on the satirical sketch comedy show Not The Nine O'Clock News, and the sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean and The Thin Blue Line. He has been listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest actors in British comedy, and amongst the top 50 comedians ever in a 2005 poll of fellow comedians. He has also had cinematic success with his performances in the Mr. Bean movie adaptations Bean and Mr. Bean's Holiday and in Johnny English and its sequel Johnny English Reborn. He also starred in the film Never Say Never Again (a spy film based on the James Bond novel Thunderball) in 1983.
Atkinson, the youngest of four brothers, was born in Consett, County Durham, England. His parents were Eric Atkinson, a farmer and company director, and Ella May (née Bainbridge), who married on 29 June 1945. His three older brothers were Paul, who died as an infant, Rodney, a Eurosceptic economist who narrowly lost the United Kingdom Independence Party leadership election in 2000, and Rupert. Atkinson was brought up Anglican, and was educated at Durham Choristers School, St. Bees School, and Newcastle University. In 1975, he continued for the degree of MSc in Electrical Engineering at The Queen's College, Oxford, the same college his father matriculated at in 1935, which made Atkinson an Honorary Fellow in 2006. First achieving notice at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1976, while at Oxford, he also acted and performed early sketches for the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), the Oxford Revue and the Experimental Theatre Club (ETC), meeting writer Richard Curtis and composer Howard Goodall, with whom he would continue to collaborate during his career.
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Ruth Jones
Ruth Jones (born 22 September 1966) is a Welsh TV actress and writer. She co-starred in and co-wrote the award-winning British TV comedy Gavin & Stacey (2007-2010), and has appeared in many television comedies and dramas, such as Jimmy McGovern's The Street with Timothy Spall (2009), and starring as Hattie Jacques in Hattie for BBC4 (2011) and as Stella in Stella for Sky 1 (2012).
She was co-founder of Tidy Productions (2008), which she runs with TV producer, David Peet.
Ruth Alexandra Elizabeth Jones was born on 22 September 1966 in Bridgend in South Wales. Her father was a legal executive for British Steel, Port Talbot, and her mother was a psychiatrist. She has two older brothers and a younger sister. When she was a child, her family moved to Porthcawl where she attended the same school as Rob Brydon. After graduating from Warwick University with a drama degree she spent a year at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff.
After graduation Jones found it difficult to get acting work, and considered training as a solicitor. However she then received her first professional role in pantomime in Cardiff. She was also helped by Rob Brydon, who invited her to join an improv group in Bath; the group also included Julia Davis, with whom Jones would later appear in Nighty Night.
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Sebastian Coe
Sebastian Newbold Coe, Baron Coe, KBE (born 29 September 1956), often known as Seb Coe, is an English former athlete and politician. As a middle distance runner, Coe won four Olympic medals, including the 1500 metres gold medal at the Olympic Games in 1980 and 1984, and set eight outdoor and three indoor world records in middle distance track events (and also participated in a world record relay). His rivalries with fellow Britons Steve Ovett and Steve Cram dominated middle-distance racing for much of the 1980s.
Following his retirement from athletics he served as a Member of Parliament for the Conservative Party from 1992–97, and became a life peer in 2000. He was the head of the London bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics, and, after the International Olympic Committee awarded the games to London, became the chairman of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games. In 2007, he was also elected a vice-president of the International Association of Athletics Federations. On 25 August 2011, he was re-elected for another four year term.
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Stella McCartney
Stella Nina McCartney (born 13 September 1971) is an English fashion designer. She is the daughter of former Beatles member Sir Paul McCartney and the late photographer and animal rights activist, Linda McCartney.
Stella McCartney was born in Lambeth, London, England on 13 September 1971, the second child of Beatles bassist Paul McCartney and photographer Linda Eastman. She is named after her maternal great-grandmothers (both of Linda McCartney's grandmothers were named Stella). As a young girl, McCartney travelled the globe with her parents and their pop music group Wings, along with her siblings: older half-sister Heather (who was legally adopted by Paul McCartney), older sister Mary, and younger brother James. According to her father, the name of Wings was inspired by Stella's difficult birth. As his daughter was being born by emergency caesarean section, Paul sat outside the operating room and prayed that she be born "on the wings of an angel." Wings toured from shortly after her birth in 1971 until 1980.
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Stephen Fry
Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter, film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club.
After a troubled childhood and adolescence, during which he was expelled from a number of schools and eventually spent three months in prison for credit card fraud, he was able to secure a place at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he studied English Literature.
He first came to public attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also included Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery. With Hugh Laurie, as the comedy double act Fry and Laurie, he co-wrote and co-starred in A Bit of Fry & Laurie, and took the role of Jeeves (with Laurie playing Wooster) in Jeeves and Wooster.
As an actor, Fry played the lead in the film Wilde, was Melchett in the BBC television series Blackadder, starred as the title character Peter Kingdom in the ITV series Kingdom, has a recurring guest role as Dr. Gordon Wyatt on the Fox crime series Bones and appeared as rogue TV host Gordon Deitrich in the dystopian thriller V For Vendetta. He has also written and presented several documentary series including the 2008 television series Stephen Fry in America, which saw him travelling across all 50 US states. Since 2003 he has been the host of the quiz show QI.
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Steve Dillon
Steve Dillon is a British comic book artist, from Luton, Bedfordshire, best known for his work with writer Garth Ennis on Hellblazer, Preacher and The Punisher.
Dillon first realised his potential as a serious comic book artist during the production of a school comic book called "Sci Fi Adventures" with school friends Neil Bailey & Paul Mahon in 1975. His first strip in this comic was "The Space Vampire". This was followed by the "Escape from the Planet of the Apes" series which was drawn to an increasingly high standard well beyond his years. In the late seventies Dillon wrote and illustrated a strip "Pi" in a fanzine produced with Bailey called "Ultimate Science Fiction".[citation needed]
Dillon got his first professional work at the age of 16, drawing the title story in the first issue of Hulk Weekly for Marvel UK, later working on the Nick Fury strip. In the 1980s he also drew for Warrior and Doctor Who Magazine, where he created the character of Abslom Daak. He did a considerable amount of work for the comics 2000 AD and Warrior. Along with Brett Ewins, Dillon started the comic magazine Deadline in 1988, which continued for another seven years. Together with author Garth Ennis, Dillon worked on Hellblazer and, later, on the very successful (and critically acclaimed) Preacher which wrapped up in 2000 after 66 issues. Dillon also created the character Dogwelder, featured in Ennis's series Hitman.
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Sting (musician)
Gordon Matthew Thomas SumnerCBE (born October 2, 1951), known by his stage name Sting, is an English musician, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, activist, actor and philanthropist, born on 2 October 1951. Prior to starting his solo career, he was the principal songwriter, lead singer and bassist of the New Wave band The Police.
Sting has varied his musical style throughout his career, incorporating distinct elements of jazz, reggae, classical, New Age, and worldbeat into his music. As a solo musician and member of The Police, Sting has received sixteen Grammy Awards for his work, receiving his first Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance in 1981, three Brit Awards — winning Best British Male in 1994, a Golden Globe, an Emmy Award, and several Oscar nominations for Best Original Song. He is a member of both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Sting was born in Wallsend, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, the eldest of four children born to Audrey (née Cowell), a hairdresser, and Ernest Matthew Sumner, a milkman and engineer. His siblings were Philip, Angela and Anita. Young Gordon would often assist his father with the early-morning milk-delivery rounds, and by age 10 he became obsessed with an old Spanish guitar that had been left behind by an emigrating friend of his father.
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Susan Boyle
Susan Magdalane Boyle (born 1 April 1961) is a Scottish singer who came to international public attention when she appeared as a contestant on the TV programme Britain's Got Talent on 11 April 2009, singing "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Misérables. Her first album was released in November 2009 and debuted as the number one best-selling album on charts around the globe.
Global interest in Boyle was triggered by the contrast between her powerful mezzo-soprano voice and her plain appearance on stage. The juxtaposition of the audience's first impression of her, with the standing ovation she received during and after her performance, led to an international media and Internet response. Within nine days of the audition, videos of Boyle—from the show, various interviews and her 1999 rendition of "Cry Me a River"—had been watched over 100 million times. Her audition video has been viewed on the internet several hundred million times. Despite the sustained media interest she later finished in second place in the final of the show behind dance troupe Diversity.
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The Boat That Rocked
The Boat That Rocked (retitled Pirate Radio in North America) is a 2009 British comedy film written and directed by Richard Curtis, with pirate radio in the United Kingdom during the 1960s as its setting. The film has an ensemble cast featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost, and Kenneth Branagh. Set in 1966, it tells the story of the fictitious pirate radio station "Radio Rock" and its crew of eclectic disc jockeys, who broadcast rock and pop music to the United Kingdom from a ship anchored in the North Sea while the British government endeavors to shut them down. It was produced by Working Title Films for Universal Pictures, and was filmed on the Isle of Portland and at Shepperton Studios.
The film opened 1 April 2009 and was a commercial failure at the British box office, making only GB£6.1 million in its first twelve weeks, less than a quarter of its over £30 million production cost. It received mixed reviews, with most criticism directed at its muddled storyline and 2¼-hour length. For its North American release it was re-edited to trim its running time by twenty minutes, and retitled Pirate Radio. Opening 13 November 2009, Pirate Radio was still commercially unsuccessful, earning only about US$8 million (approximately £5 million).
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The Kumars at No. 42
The Kumars at No. 42 is a British television show. It won an International Emmy in 2002 and in 2003. It ran for seven series totalling 53 episodes.
The show stars a fictional British Indian family, including Madhuri and Ashwin Kumar (played by Indira Joshi and Vincent Ebrahim), their thirty-something son Sanjeev (played by Sanjeev Bhaskar), and Sushila, Sanjeev's grandmother, normally referred to as Ummi (played by Meera Syal). The family lives in Wembley, London, England. The show's central premise is that Sanjeev's parents have supported his dream of being a TV presenter by having a TV studio built on what used to be their back garden. Running jokes include Sanjeev's apparent social ineptitude, and Ashwin's obsession with financial matters and his tendency to tell long stories with no real point. It is also a regular conceit that the guests' appearance fees are paid in chutney.
The show has an improvisational feel, though in reality much of the regular cast's performance was scripted. In the early episodes only Meera Syal improvised to any great extent, though as the cast became accustomed to their characters the improvised content increased. Bhaskar stated in a 2009 interview, "We never rehearsed the guests, and the best ones were the ones to keep the ball in the air."
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The Mighty Boosh
The Mighty Boosh is a British comedy troupe featuring comedians Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding. Developed from 3 stage shows and a 6-episode radio series, it has since spawned a total of 20 television episodes for BBC Three and 2 live tours of the UK, as well as 2 live shows in the United States.
Fielding first met Barratt after seeing him perform his solo stand-up routine at the Hellfire Comedy Club in the Wycombe Swan Theatre. The pair soon found that they shared comic interests, formed a double act, and "decided to be the new Goodies". After their first performance together at a bar in London in April 1998, Barratt and Fielding developed their zookeeper characters--Howard Moon and Vince Noir, respectively--in a series of sketches for Paramount Comedy’s Unnatural Acts. Here they also met American Rich Fulcher, who became Bob Fossil. Fielding’s friend Dave Brown and Fielding's brother Michael also became regular collaborators. Richard Ayoade was another original cast member, playing adventurer Dixon Bainbridge, but Matt Berry replaced him in the first television series, since Ayoade was under contract with Channel 4. Ayoade returned in the second and third series as a belligerent shaman named Saboo.
wn.com/The_Mighty_Boosh -
The Vicar of Dibley
The Vicar of Dibley is a British sitcom created by Richard Curtis and written for its lead actress, Dawn French, by Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer, with contributions from Kit Hesketh-Harvey. It aired from 1994 to 2007. The Vicar of Dibley is set in a fictional small Oxfordshire village called Dibley, which is assigned a female vicar following the 1992 changes in the Church of England that permitted the ordination of women. The main character was an invention of Richard Curtis, but he and Dawn French extensively consulted the Rev. Joy Carroll, one of the first female priests, and garnered many character traits and much information.
In ratings terms, the programme is among the most successful in the digital era, with the various Christmas and New Year specials in 1999, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 all entering the top 10 programmes of the year.The Vicar of Dibley received multiple British Comedy Awards, two International Emmys, and was a multiple British Academy Television Awards nominee. In 2004, it placed third in Britain's Best Sitcom.
wn.com/The_Vicar_of_Dibley -
Theo Paphitis
Theo Paphitis (Greek: Θεόδωρος Παφίτης) (born 24 September 1959) is a retail magnate and British entrepreneur of Greek Cypriot origin. He made the majority of his fortune in the retail sector, and is best known to the general public for his appearances on the BBC business programme Dragons' Den and as former chairman of Millwall Football Club.
In the Sunday Times Rich List 2008, he was ranked 581st although his estimated worth had increased to £135 million since 2007. The newspaper reported a rise in his wealth, in April 2009, to an estimated £165 million. The figures, as reported in The Sunday Times, are conservative when taking into account the £100 million he gained from the sale of La Senza in 2006.
Born in Limassol, Cyprus, Paphitis is the second oldest of five brothers, Marinos, George, Christos and Xanthos. He came to England with his parents and brother Marinos when he was nine years old. He attended Ambler Primary School, Islington and Woodberry Down comprehensive School, Manor House (closed in 1981) where he battled with dyslexia, but began his entrepreneurial activities by running his school tuckshop , at the age of 15.
wn.com/Theo_Paphitis -
Tim Vine
Timothy "Tim" Mark Vine (born 4 March 1967 in Cheam, London)[citation needed] is an English actor, writer and comedian.
He has released a number of DVDs of his stand-up comedy, as well as starring in the series Not Going Out with Lee Mack on the BBC. He won the award for best joke at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2010, and for the second best in August 2011.
He attended the public school Epsom College with his brother Jeremy Vine.
His stand-up act consists primarily of a series of quick-fire one-liners and puns. Vine has appeared regularly at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, with shows such as The Tim Vine Shambles and The Tim Vine Fiasco which won him the Perrier newcomer award in 1995. In 2006, he had a large advertising hoarding erected featuring his name and image, with a small sub-heading "...is not appearing at this year's Edinburgh Festival" Vine appeared at the Pleasance Courtyard for the first two weeks of the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe performing a show entitled Punslinger.
wn.com/Tim_Vine -
Tom Jones (singer)
Sir Thomas John Woodward,OBE (born 7 June 1940), known by his stage name Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer. Since the mid 1960s, Jones has sung many styles of popular music – pop, rock, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, soul and gospel – and sold over 100 million records.
Jones has had thirty-six Top 40 hits in the United Kingdom and nineteen in the United States; some of his notable songs include "It's Not Unusual", "What's New Pussycat", "Delilah", "Green, Green Grass of Home", "She's a Lady" and "Kiss".
Having been awarded an OBE in 1999, Jones received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for "services to music" in 2006. Jones has received numerous other awards throughout his career, including the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1966, two Brit Awards—winning Best British Male in 2000, and an MTV Video Music Award. Aside from his musical career, Jones is currently a coach and mentor on television show The Voice UK.
Tom Jones was born at 57 Kingsland Terrace, Treforest, Pontypridd in South Wales. His parents were Thomas Woodward (died 5 October 1981), a coal miner, and Freda Jones (died 7 February 2003). His family was mainly of English descent, both of his paternal grandparents having been born in England and his maternal grandmother, Ada Jones from Pontypridd, having English parents.
wn.com/Tom_Jones_(singer) -
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He resigned from all of these positions in June 2007.
Blair was elected Leader of the Labour Party in the leadership election of July 1994, following the sudden death of his predecessor, John Smith. Under his leadership, the party used the phrases "New Labour" and "New Socialism" to define its policy, and moved away from its support of state socialism since the 1960s and created a new version of the ethical socialism that was last pursued by Clement Attlee. Critics of Blair claim that "New Labour" did not adhere to socialism as claimed, and that it effectively advocated capitalism. Blair subsequently led Labour to a landslide victory in the 1997 general election. At 43 years old, he became the youngest Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool in 1812. In the first years of the New Labour government, Blair's government implemented a number of 1997 manifesto pledges, introducing the minimum wage, Human Rights Act and Freedom of Information Act, and carrying out devolution, establishing the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, and the Northern Ireland Assembly.
wn.com/Tony_Blair -
Tony Christie
Tony Christie (born Anthony Fitzgerald, 25 April 1943) is an English musician, singer and actor. He is best known for his track, "Is This The Way To Amarillo", a double UK chart success.
Tony Christie has sold over 10 million albums Worldwide. He had two Top Twenty hits in the UK Singles Chart in 1971 with "I Did What I Did For Maria", which reached #2 and "Is This the Way to Amarillo", which peaked at #18. He also had a minor hit with "Avenues And Alleyways" which reached #37, the theme to the television series The Protectors. "Is This the Way to Amarillo" sold over one million copies by September 1972, and was awarded a gold disc. His early songs were dramatic big-voiced numbers, many of which were written by Mitch Murray and Peter Callander.
He recorded albums regularly throughout the 1970s and made infrequent appearances on the charts. His album With Loving Feeling sold well boosted by the hit single "Is This The Way to Amarillo". He recorded an album in the United States in 1973 with the record producer Snuff Garrett, which did little to stop his commercial slide. A live album followed which sold relatively better. But by the mid 1970s recorded work became rarer and stage work took preference.
wn.com/Tony_Christie -
Ugly Dave Grey
Ugly Dave Gray (born Graham David Taylor, 26 December 1933 in Manchester, England) is an Australian television personality.
Gray was a regular panellist on Graham Kennedy's Blankety Blanks in 1977-1978. He had earlier taken a straight dramatic role as publican Bunny Howard in the early episodes of soap opera The Young Doctors in 1976. He left his role in The Young Doctors after his initial 13-week contract expired in order to work on Blankety Blanks. Kennedy himself had convinced Gray to do Blankety Blanks Gray had been receiving $100 a day for The Young Doctors, with Blankety Blanks paying $45 an episode this represented a pay cut. Later Gray signed with agent Harry M Miller who negotiated the increased pay rate of $75 per episode of Blankety Blanks which remained until the series ended.
Gray was appointed Court Jester to 1977 King of Moomba Mickey Mouse (controversial choice with some Melburnians preferring a 'home-grown' Blinky Bill).
Gray later hosted the celebrity game show Celebrity Tattle Tales in 1980, and Play Your Cards Right in 1984.
wn.com/Ugly_Dave_Grey -
Vic Reeves
James Roderick Moir (born 24 January 1959), better known by the stage name Vic Reeves, is an English comedian, best known for his double act with Bob Mortimer (see Vic and Bob). He is known for his surreal and non sequitur sense of humour.
In 2003, he and Bob Mortimer were listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy. In a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, Reeves and Mortimer were voted the 9th greatest comedy act ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.
James Roderick Moir was born in Leeds, the son of James Neill (1926–2004) and Audrey Moir (née Leigh). At the age of five, he moved to Darlington with his parents and younger sister Lois. He attended Heathfield Nursery and went on to the nearby secondary school, Eastbourne Comprehensive in Darlington.
Moir has four children; the eldest two are Alice Vincent Moir (born May 1993) and Louis Vincent Moir (born July 1997 in York), by his first wife Sarah Vincent, whom he married in 1990. They divorced in 1999.
wn.com/Vic_Reeves -
Vicar of Dibley
The Vicar of Dibley is a British sitcom created by Richard Curtis and written for its lead actress, Dawn French, by Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer, with contributions from Kit Hesketh-Harvey. It aired from 1994 to 2007. The Vicar of Dibley is set in a fictional small Oxfordshire village called Dibley, which is assigned a female vicar following the 1992 changes in the Church of England that permitted the ordination of women. The main character was an invention of Richard Curtis, but he and Dawn French extensively consulted the Rev. Joy Carroll, one of the first female priests, and garnered many character traits and much information.
In ratings terms, the programme is among the most successful in the digital era, with the various Christmas and New Year specials in 1999, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 all entering the top 10 programmes of the year.The Vicar of Dibley received multiple British Comedy Awards, two International Emmys, and was a multiple British Academy Television Awards nominee. In 2004, it placed third in Britain's Best Sitcom.
wn.com/Vicar_of_Dibley -
Victoria Wood
Victoria Wood CBE (born 19 May 1953) is an English comedienne, actress, singer-songwriter, screenwriter and director. Wood has written and starred in sketches, plays, films and sitcoms, and her live comedy act is interspersed with her own compositions, which she accompanies on piano. Much of her humour is grounded in everyday life, and includes references to popular British media and brand names of quintessentially British products. She is noted for her skills in observing culture, and in satirising social classes.
She started her career in 1974 by winning the ATV talent show New Faces. It wasn't until the 1980s that she began to establish herself as a comedy star, with the award-winning television series Victoria Wood As Seen On TV and became one of Britain's most popular stand-up comedians. In 1998, she wrote and starred in the (again, award-winning) sitcom dinnerladies. In 2006, she won two BAFTA awards for her one-off drama for ITV1, Housewife, 49. Wood frequently works with long-term collaborators Julie Walters, Duncan Preston and Celia Imrie.
wn.com/Victoria_Wood -
Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg ( /ˈhwʊpi/, born Caryn Elaine Johnson; November 13, 1955) is an American comedienne, actress, singer-songwriter, political activist, author and talk show host.
Goldberg made her film debut in The Color Purple (1985) playing Celie, a mistreated black woman in the Deep South. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won her first Golden Globe Award for her role in the film. In 1990, she starred as Oda Mae Brown, a psychic helping a slain man (Patrick Swayze) find his killer in the blockbuster film Ghost. This performance won her a second Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Notable later films include Sister Act and Sister Act 2, The Lion King, Made in America, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Girl, Interrupted and Rat Race. She is also acclaimed for her roles as the bartender Guinan in Star Trek: The Next Generation and as Terry Doolittle in Jumpin' Jack Flash. More recently, she had performed the voice of Stretch in Toy Story 3 and made an appearance in Glee as Carmen Tibideaux.
wn.com/Whoopi_Goldberg
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Comic Relief - Catherine Tate & David Tennant
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:10
- Updated: 18 Dec 2012
www.rednoseday.com PLEASE DONATE! David Tennant is Catherine Tate's new English teacher in a sketch performed for Comic Relief 2007. Will she be bothered, though?
http://wn.com/Comic_Relief_Catherine_Tate_David_Tennant
www.rednoseday.com PLEASE DONATE! David Tennant is Catherine Tate's new English teacher in a sketch performed for Comic Relief 2007. Will she be bothered, though?
Smithy to the Rescue - Red Nose Day 2011 - BBC Comic Relief Night
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 13:26
- Updated: 18 Dec 2012
Donate and download exclusive content and top sketches at www.bbc.co.uk A host of stars join Smithy - James Corden - for the third of his special sketches for Comic Relief. Smithy gets a call to help Comic Relief while he's driving with George Michael!
http://wn.com/Smithy_to_the_Rescue_Red_Nose_Day_2011_BBC_Comic_Relief_Night
Donate and download exclusive content and top sketches at www.bbc.co.uk A host of stars join Smithy - James Corden - for the third of his special sketches for Comic Relief. Smithy gets a call to help Comic Relief while he's driving with George Michael!
- published: 19 Mar 2011
- views: 1270749
- author: BBC
Comic Relief does University Challenge
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 26:44
- Updated: 18 Dec 2012
Here's your celebrity starter for 10.
http://wn.com/Comic_Relief_does_University_Challenge
Little Britain meet Elton John - Classic Comic Relief
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:28
- Updated: 18 Dec 2012
Special Little Britain sketch for Comic Relief. The only gay in the village Daffyd Thomas interviews Elton John for his local newspaper.
http://wn.com/Little_Britain_meet_Elton_John_Classic_Comic_Relief
Special Little Britain sketch for Comic Relief. The only gay in the village Daffyd Thomas interviews Elton John for his local newspaper.
- published: 22 May 2009
- views: 893996
- author: rednoseday
Smithy Meets the England Football Team - Red Nose Day 2009
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 8:20
- Updated: 19 Dec 2012
The team behind Gavin and Stacey's bespoke sketch for comic relief's Red Nose Day 2009. Smithy stubbles into the England Football meeting, and lets rip. Featuring David Beckham, John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, David James, Peter Crouch, Michael Carrick.
http://wn.com/Smithy_Meets_the_England_Football_Team_Red_Nose_Day_2009
The team behind Gavin and Stacey's bespoke sketch for comic relief's Red Nose Day 2009. Smithy stubbles into the England Football meeting, and lets rip. Featuring David Beckham, John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, David James, Peter Crouch, Michael Carrick.
- published: 16 Mar 2009
- views: 3215641
- author: rednoseday
BBC One - Comic Relief - Daniel Craig & Catherine Tate
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:06
- Updated: 19 Dec 2012
www.rednoseday.com PLEASE DONATE! Daniel Craig and Catherine Tate fall in love for Comic Relief 2007.
http://wn.com/BBC_One_Comic_Relief_Daniel_Craig_Catherine_Tate
www.rednoseday.com PLEASE DONATE! Daniel Craig and Catherine Tate fall in love for Comic Relief 2007.
- published: 22 Mar 2007
- views: 1077750
- author: BBC
Black Adder - Classic Comic Relief
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 15:14
- Updated: 19 Dec 2012
Classic Comedy see's Black Adder return for a Comic Relief Special. It is up to Charles' loyal subjects Sir Edmund Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson) and Baldrick (Tony Robinson) to ride to the rescue.
http://wn.com/Black_Adder_Classic_Comic_Relief
Classic Comedy see's Black Adder return for a Comic Relief Special. It is up to Charles' loyal subjects Sir Edmund Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson) and Baldrick (Tony Robinson) to ride to the rescue.
- published: 08 Jun 2009
- views: 748218
- author: rednoseday
Prime Cracker - Classic Comic Relief
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 13:41
- Updated: 19 Dec 2012
Helen Mirren and Robbie Coltrane star in a special Prime Suspect and Cracker collaboration for Comic Relief.
http://wn.com/Prime_Cracker_Classic_Comic_Relief
Helen Mirren and Robbie Coltrane star in a special Prime Suspect and Cracker collaboration for Comic Relief.
- published: 22 May 2009
- views: 36612
- author: rednoseday
BBC One - Comic Relief - Ricky Gervais
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 8:47
- Updated: 17 Dec 2012
www.rednoseday.com PLEASE DONATE! Ricky Gervais goes to Africa for Comic Relief 2007. Or does he?
http://wn.com/BBC_One_Comic_Relief_Ricky_Gervais
www.rednoseday.com PLEASE DONATE! Ricky Gervais goes to Africa for Comic Relief 2007. Or does he?
- published: 22 Mar 2007
- views: 486562
- author: BBC
Bohemian Rhapsody for comic relief
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:34
- Updated: 13 Dec 2012
A bunch of UK stars perform Queen's BoRhap.
http://wn.com/Bohemian_Rhapsody_for_comic_relief
Vicar of Dibley and Johnny Depp - Classic Comic Relief
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 13:51
- Updated: 18 Dec 2012
Special funny Vicar of Dibley episode for Comic Relief featuring Johnny Depp.
http://wn.com/Vicar_of_Dibley_and_Johnny_Depp_Classic_Comic_Relief
Special funny Vicar of Dibley episode for Comic Relief featuring Johnny Depp.
- published: 16 Mar 2009
- views: 388728
- author: rednoseday
Lauren Copper meets Tony Blair - Classic Comic Relief
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:36
- Updated: 19 Dec 2012
Funny sketch from Catherine Tate where Lauren Cooper gets work experience at 10 Downing Street with Tony Blair. Who is bovvered?
http://wn.com/Lauren_Copper_meets_Tony_Blair_Classic_Comic_Relief
Funny sketch from Catherine Tate where Lauren Cooper gets work experience at 10 Downing Street with Tony Blair. Who is bovvered?
- published: 16 Mar 2009
- views: 963247
- author: rednoseday
Uptown Downstairs Abbey Part One - Red Nose Day 2011 - BBC Comic Relief Night
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:55
- Updated: 18 Dec 2012
Donate and download exclusive content and top sketches at www.bbc.co.uk A host of stars, including Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley, Harry Enfield and Victoria Wood join forces for a period-drama-themed spoof for Red Nose Day.
http://wn.com/Uptown_Downstairs_Abbey_Part_One_Red_Nose_Day_2011_BBC_Comic_Relief_Night
Donate and download exclusive content and top sketches at www.bbc.co.uk A host of stars, including Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley, Harry Enfield and Victoria Wood join forces for a period-drama-themed spoof for Red Nose Day.
- published: 18 Mar 2011
- views: 848390
- author: BBC
Torvill and Bean - Classic Comic Relief
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 10:32
- Updated: 19 Dec 2012
Mr Bean goes ice skating with Jane Torvill.
http://wn.com/Torvill_and_Bean_Classic_Comic_Relief
Nan Taylor on "Deal or No Deal" - Classic Comic Relief
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 11:06
- Updated: 17 Dec 2012
'Nan' Taylor (Catherine Tate) goes on Deal or No Deal.
http://wn.com/Nan_Taylor_on_Deal_or_No_Deal_Classic_Comic_Relief
'Nan' Taylor (Catherine Tate) goes on Deal or No Deal.
- published: 16 Mar 2009
- views: 531748
- author: rednoseday
BBC One - Comic Relief - Dennis Waterman & Little Britain
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:43
- Updated: 17 Dec 2012
www.rednoseday.com PLEASE DONATE! Matt Lucas and David Walliams perform their Denis Waterman sketch for Comic Relief 2007, but this time the real Dennis Waterman shows up.
http://wn.com/BBC_One_Comic_Relief_Dennis_Waterman_Little_Britain
www.rednoseday.com PLEASE DONATE! Matt Lucas and David Walliams perform their Denis Waterman sketch for Comic Relief 2007, but this time the real Dennis Waterman shows up.
- published: 22 Mar 2007
- views: 186982
- author: BBC
BBC One - Comic Relief - Mr Bean's Wedding
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 7:32
- Updated: 19 Dec 2012
www.rednoseday.com PLEASE DONATE! Mr Bean attends a wedding in the way only he knows how.
http://wn.com/BBC_One_Comic_Relief_Mr_Bean's_Wedding
www.rednoseday.com PLEASE DONATE! Mr Bean attends a wedding in the way only he knows how.
- published: 22 Mar 2007
- views: 2083348
- author: BBC
Russell Kane Does "Crazy In Love" - Let's Dance for Comic Relief 2011 - Show 1 - BBC One
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:05
- Updated: 18 Dec 2012
More about this programme: www.bbc.co.uk Comedian Russell struts his stuff to Crazy In Love.
http://wn.com/Russell_Kane_Does_Crazy_In_Love_Let's_Dance_for_Comic_Relief_2011_Show_1_BBC_One
More about this programme: www.bbc.co.uk Comedian Russell struts his stuff to Crazy In Love.
- published: 19 Feb 2011
- views: 870427
- author: BBC
Mr Bean's Wedding - Classic Comic Relief
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 7:18
- Updated: 19 Dec 2012
Classic Comic Relief sketch where Mr Bean goes to a wedding.
http://wn.com/Mr_Bean's_Wedding_Classic_Comic_Relief
Classic Comic Relief sketch where Mr Bean goes to a wedding.
- published: 16 Mar 2009
- views: 2938770
- author: rednoseday
Comic Relief "Bobcat Goldthwait" Stand Up Comedy
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:40
- Updated: 16 Dec 2012
Comic Relief "Bobcat Goldthwait" Stand Up Comedy
http://wn.com/Comic_Relief_Bobcat_Goldthwait_Stand_Up_Comedy
Comic Relief "Bobcat Goldthwait" Stand Up Comedy
- published: 03 Feb 2010
- views: 430163
- author: ALAUGHFROMTHEPAST
Robert Webb performs What a Feeling - Let's Dance for Comic Relief - BBC One
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:48
- Updated: 18 Dec 2012
www.bbc.co.uk Robert Webb dances "What a Feeling" from Flashdance.
http://wn.com/Robert_Webb_performs_What_a_Feeling_Let's_Dance_for_Comic_Relief_BBC_One
www.bbc.co.uk Robert Webb dances "What a Feeling" from Flashdance.
- published: 21 Feb 2009
- views: 1461704
- author: BBC
Comic Relief Malaria film
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:46
- Updated: 26 Nov 2012
Our short animated film on the devastating effects of Malaria was aired on BBC ONE for Comic Relief and Sports Relief, to an estimated audience of 10 million viewers. The film, which was originally commissioned by Comic Relief last year was written by Richard Curtis and narrated by The Office's Martin Freeman. Sports Relief was a great success, raising a staggering £31633091 -- money which will make a world of difference to people living unimaginably tough lives, both in the UK and in the world's poorest countries.
http://wn.com/Comic_Relief_Malaria_film
Our short animated film on the devastating effects of Malaria was aired on BBC ONE for Comic Relief and Sports Relief, to an estimated audience of 10 million viewers. The film, which was originally commissioned by Comic Relief last year was written by Richard Curtis and narrated by The Office's Martin Freeman. Sports Relief was a great success, raising a staggering £31633091 -- money which will make a world of difference to people living unimaginably tough lives, both in the UK and in the world's poorest countries.
- published: 30 Jan 2012
- views: 1067
- author: flickerpixvideos
Ricky Gervais Comic Relief 2007 Red Nose Day
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 8:25
- Updated: 18 Dec 2012
Ricky Gervais visits Africa for Comic Relief....or so it seems If you enjoyed this you can still donate at www.rednoseday.com - even £1 would make a difference
http://wn.com/Ricky_Gervais_Comic_Relief_2007_Red_Nose_Day
Ricky Gervais visits Africa for Comic Relief....or so it seems If you enjoyed this you can still donate at www.rednoseday.com - even £1 would make a difference
- published: 17 Mar 2007
- views: 1245540
- author: HammerDave
photo: AP / Jason DeCrow
16 Dec 2012
NEWTOWN, Conn. — The gunman in the Connecticut shooting rampage committed suicide as first responders closed in, the governor said Sunday, raising the specter that Adam Lanza had planned an even more gruesome massacre and was stopped short. Lanza blasted his way into the building and used a high-power rifle to kill 20 children and six adults, including the principal who tried to stop him, authorities said ... Among the questions ... H ... The Rev....(size: 8.8Kb)
photo: AP / Charles Krupa
18 Dec 2012
Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling. "Most people reason dramatically, not quantitatively." -Oliver Wendell Holmes. On the same day that a 20-year-old, described as brilliant but remote, walked into an elementary school in Connecticut and massacred 26 children and adults, the school where I teach went on "lock-down." Four students with a handgun were arrested ... That morning before school, he had posted on Twitter and Facebook....(size: 14.0Kb)
photo: AP / Pablo Martinez Monsivais
19 Dec 2012
WASHINGTON. US President Barack Obama backs a new bill to revive an assault weapons ban and other new gun laws, the White House said Tuesday, fleshing out his nascent response to a shocking school massacre. Obama also called an ardently pro-gun senator who has shifted his position on firearms laws since Friday's carnage in Connecticut and has begun meeting top cabinet officials to consider his options, his spokesman Jay Carney said ... ....(size: 4.9Kb)
photo: AP / Manu Brabo
18 Dec 2012
The UN's humanitarian chief has called on Syria to urgently allow fuel imports for aid deliveries and give access to 10 more aid agencies. Valerie Amos met government officials in the capital, Damascus, to discuss the growing humanitarian crisis. UN workers also needed to freely move into opposition-controlled areas to step up their aid efforts, she said ... 'Greater rebel contact' ... The claim could not be independently verified ... ....(size: 2.6Kb)
photo: Creative Commons / Joachim Huber
18 Dec 2012
Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling. When a Stanford geneticist, Gerald Crabtree, published a provocative and controversial new view on evolutionary change, namely that humans are actually getting dumber, he should have also added that humans are still developing an extermination gene ... Paleontologist Tim Flannery would more than likely agree with Crabtree ... Strange strings of gravel also overlaid some bones ... (1) Kane, Alex ... 195....(size: 9.4Kb)
Peace FM Online
19 Dec 2012
A Deputy Minister for Information and Member of Parliament (MP) elect for the North Tongu Constituency, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa describes the protest for justice by the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) and its supporters over electoral fraud as a comic of relief to Ghanaians.. He says the NPP is becoming a comedy of contradictions and a laughing stock in Ghana ... ....(size: 2.8Kb)
The Examiner
19 Dec 2012
- The sticking power of ComiXology, the digital comics application launched in 2007, was proven true this week by virtue of a new statistic ... This naturally adds some weight to the argument that there is an audience for comic books outside the traditional medium and the direct market model - although how many ComiXology users are new fans who don't read weekly printed comics already is unknown ... Indie comics news 12/11/12....(size: 2.8Kb)
The Examiner
19 Dec 2012
the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) was established in 1986 as a non-profit organization that was dedicated to protecting the First Amendment rights of those in the comicbook medium ... The Comic Book Legal Defense FundThe Comic Book Legal Defense Fund ... The CBLDF also works independently as well as with various coalitions in order to battle unconstitutional legislation that would affect how comics are not only made but distributed....(size: 4.1Kb)
Digital Spy
19 Dec 2012
DC Comics has held onto the rights to The Spirit Archives, it has been confirmed ... Dynamite Entertainment has dominated the pulp comics market in recent years with titles including The Shadow, The Spider, Masks and Thun'da ... > New York's Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art closes ... Will Eisner, DC Comics, Comics ... DC Comics retains Spirit Archives rights ... New York comics museum closed down. Comics for libraries scheme unveiled ... More Comics News....(size: 8.1Kb)
Digital Spy
19 Dec 2012
DC Comics imprint Vertigo has appointed Shelly Bond as its new executive editor ... I look forward to reading many great comics and graphic novels from these three for many years to come ... > DC Comics promises more from Vertigo. > Comics industry responds to Karen Berger's Vertigo departure ... Karen Berger, Shelly Bond, DC Comics, Vertigo, Comics ... DC Comics retains 'Spirit Archives' rights ... DC Comics promises more from Vertigo....(size: 8.4Kb)
Digital Spy
19 Dec 2012
The My Chemical Romance frontman will return with the Dark Horse Comics title after a four-year hiatus ... "The original idea for the comic informed the record," said the writer/singer. "The record helped refine the idea, and then Becky had done a drawing of [hero] the Girl for the single 'The Only Hope for Me Is You' and I saw it and thought, 'This is the comic' ... Gerard Way, Becky Cloonan, Shaun Simon, Dark Horse Comics, Comics, Music....(size: 8.2Kb)
The Examiner
19 Dec 2012
While Slott has joked that he'd have to "hide in a bunker" once ASM #700 debuted and at October's NEW YORK COMIC ON he quipped about having gotten "his first death threat from the Philippines" during a signing I attended, the situation has gotten intense enough that he intends to forward all such threats to the proper authorities ... Expect a review of the landmark comic in this column soon! ... Marvel Comics news 12/12/12....(size: 4.4Kb)
Business Wire
19 Dec 2012
Campaign produces over 360,000 mobile interactions, demonstrating continued success with mobile and broadcast . LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Velti (NASDAQ ... James Wiggins, Programme Manager, of Channel 4 said ... Note to editor ... Comic Relief - £15.1m (2011) and £7.8m (2009) Sport Relief - £7.9m (2012) and £3.4m (2010) The ‘Stand Up To Cancer’ donation lines closed on 30th November 2012. About Velti ... For more information, visit www.velti.com ... ....(size: 9.0Kb)
Digital Spy
19 Dec 2012
"The first time you're going to see Superior Spider-Man dealing with more of the Marvel Universe is at the end of Daredevil #21," said Marvel Comics senior editor Steve Wacker ... The Amazing Spider-Man writer Dan Slott recently revealed that he has received death threats over the comic's concluding plotline. > Comics industry responds to Karen Berger's Vertigo departure ... Mark Waid, Steve Wacker, Dan Slott, Marvel Comics, Comics....(size: 8.0Kb)
The Examiner
19 Dec 2012
New comic book releases 12/19/12 ... Why not spend some of that down time immersed in the pages of your favorite comic book ... So, check out this week’s list, head down to your local comic shop, pick up some great reading material and relax. Marvel Comics goes to a second print with The Amazing Spider-Man #698 (check out the origin for the diabolical Dr ... DC Comics, never one to miss a chance to tell a good story, presents Wonder Woman #15....(size: 5.8Kb)
Entertainment Weekly
19 Dec 2012
One of the best comic books of 2012 slides right in under the wire with today’s release of The Whistling Skull #1 (DC Comics) ... 1930s and ‘40s (think Doc Savage and Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu novels) and a beautiful, witty new piece of comic-book art ... The Whistling Skull, to bring these characters into the DC Comics universe....(size: 1.6Kb)
Digital Spy
19 Dec 2012
The My Chemical Romance frontman gave details of the Dark Horse Comics title's third miniseries and the continuing process of developing a movie adaptation. "I'd say it's hanging out a little bit," he told Comics Alliance regarding the film ... It was first announced in 2009 ... he said ... Gerard Way, Gabriel Bá, Dark Horse Comics, Comics, Movies ... Comics Interviews ... Comic Movie Reviews ... More Comics News ... Marvel Comics to 'run cancer storyline' 3 ... 01....(size: 8.5Kb)
Digital Spy
19 Dec 2012
Writer/director Joss Whedon has revealed that the founding member of the team from the comic book was originally written into the movie," reports ComingSoon.net ... Whedon mentioned the ever changing line-up of the Avengers comic, teasing that the movie sequel will introduce a host of new heroes ... Whedon has also been working on a Marvel Comics-inspired S.H.I.E.L.D ... from the comic to the screen ... Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941)....(size: 9.1Kb)
This article is about The British charity for the needy. For The American charity for the homeless, see Comic Relief USA. For other uses, see Comic Relief (disambiguation).
| Comic Relief | |
|---|---|
| 200px Comic Relief logo |
|
| Genre | Telethon |
| Presented by | Jonathan Ross Lenny Henry Graham Norton Davina McCall Claudia Winkleman Fearne Cotton Alan Carr (See full list) |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Location(s) | BBC Television Centre |
| Camera setup | Multiple |
| Running time | Various |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | BBC One |
| Original run | March 1985 – present |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows | Children in Need Sport Relief |
| External links | |
| Website | |
Comic Relief is an operating British charity, founded in 1985 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis and comedian Lenny Henry in response to famine in Ethiopia.[1] The highlight of Comic Relief's appeal is Red Nose Day, a biennial telethon held in March, alternating with sister project Sport Relief. Comic Relief is one of the two high profile telethon events held in the United Kingdom, the other being Children in Need, held annually in November.
Comic Relief was launched live on Noel Edmonds' Late, Late Breakfast Show on BBC1, on Christmas Day 1985 from a refugee camp in Sudan. The idea for Comic Relief came from the noted charity worker Jane Tewson, who established it as the operating name of Charity Projects, a registered charity in England[2] and Scotland.[3]
The charity states that its aim is to "bring about positive and lasting change in the lives of poor and disadvantaged people, which we believe requires investing in work that addresses people's immediate needs as well as tackling the root causes of poverty and injustice.".[4]
One of the fundamental principles behind working at Comic Relief is the "Golden Pound Principle" where every single donated pound (£) is spent on charitable projects. All operating costs, such as staff salaries, are covered by corporate sponsors, or interest earned on money waiting to be distributed.
Currently, its main supporters are the BBC, BT and Sainsbury's supermarket chain. The BBC is responsible for the live television extravaganza on Red Nose Day; BT provides the telephony, and Sainsbury's sells merchandise on behalf of the charity. Since the charity was launched in 1985, Comic Relief has raised over £750 million.[5]
Critics of Comic Relief and other BBC charity events say[citation needed] that the BBC is diverting funds from well established charities and smaller charities, there is no accountability for who decides on where the money is held or spent[citation needed], and the main beneficiary is the BBC – goodwill and free programming – the bankers who hold the funds – and especially the celebrities promoting themselves on prime-time TV for free. The July 2010 accounts for charity registration 326568[citation needed] show grant payments of £59 million pounds, net assets of £135 million pounds, with an investment portfolio held in a range of managed pooled funds and fixed term deposits. The average fulltime staff was 214, with 14 staff paid over £60,000 with remuneration for the year, excluding pensions, for Kevin Cahill, Chief Executive of £120,410.
In 2002, Comic Relief and BBC Sport teamed up to create Sport Relief, a new initiative, aiming to unite the sporting community and culminate in a night of sport, entertainment and fund-raising on BBC One. Sport Relief is a biennial charity event, and the campaign deliberately alternates years with Red Nose Day, Comic Relief's flagship event. Red Nose Day occurs in odd-numbered years, and Sport Relief in even-numbered years.
In 2009, Comic Relief launched a website calling for a financial transaction tax, the "Robin Hood" tax.
Contents
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Red Nose Day history[link]
Red Nose Day is the main way in which Comic Relief raises money. The first Red Nose Day (RND) was held on 5 February 1988 and since then they have been on the second or third Friday in March. RND 2011 was on 18 March.
Red Nose Day is often treated as a semi-holiday[citation needed]; for example, many schools have non-uniform days. The day culminates in a live telethon event on BBC One, starting in the evening and going through into the early hours of the morning, but other money-raising events take place. As the name suggests, the day involves the wearing of plastic/foam red noses which are available, in exchange for a donation, from Sainsbury's and Oxfam shops.
On television[link]
The television programming begins in the afternoon, with CBBC having various related reports, money-raising events and celebrity gunging. This is all in-between the regular programmes, but after the six o'clock news, the normal BBC One schedule is suspended at 7 pm in favour of a live show, with a break at 10 pm for the regular news programme. Whilst the BBC News at Ten is aired on BBC One, Comic Relief continues on BBC Two, and then resumes on BBC One at 10:35 pm, with each hour overseen by a different celebrity team. These celebrities do the work for free, as do the crew, with studio space and production facilities donated by the BBC.
Regular themes throughout the shows include parodies of recent popular shows, films and events, and specially filmed versions of comedy shows. Smith and Jones, and a parody sketch starring Rowan Atkinson are both regularly featured – the first being Blackadder: The Cavalier Years (1988).
1997 event[link]
The 1997 "Red Nose Day" event, held on 14 March, raised over £27m for charitable causes.[6] The Spice Girls song "Who Do You Think You Are" became the official Comic Relief single of this event and sold 672,577 copies.[7]
1999 event[link]
The 1999 "Red Nose Day" was held on 12 March and raised over £35m.[8] A parody of the Doctor Who series, Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death, starring Rowan Atkinson as the Doctor, was featured during the show, as was Wetty Hainthropp Investigates, a Victoria Wood parody of Hetty Wainthropp Investigates.
On Radio 1, Simon Mayo set the record of 37 hours of consecutive broadcasting (which was later broken in March 2011 by Chris Moyles on the same station for 52 hours, "BBC Radio 1's Longest Show Ever with Chris Moyles and Comedy Dave for Comic Relief", the world record for the longest show in radio history). The 1999 Comic Relief song was "When the Going Gets Tough" by Boyzone
2001 event[link]
The 2001 "Red Nose Day" was held on 16 March. The total raised was £61,000,140.[citation needed] As well as donations on the night of the TV show, money is raised from countrywide sponsored events and from merchandising, particularly of the red noses themselves. 5.8 million red noses were sold,[citation needed] approximately one tenth of the UK population. The final of Celebrity Big Brother 2001 aired as well.
2003 event[link]
The 2003 "Red Nose Day" was held on 14 March. The fund raising activities included Lenny Henry providing the voice of the speaking clock between 10 and 23 March with the cost of the call going to Comic Relief. On the night of the live show itself, £35m was raised, an on-the-night record.[citation needed] A total of £61,477,539 was raised that year, setting a new record.[citation needed]
Jack Dee stood outside at the top of a pole for the duration of the show, parodying the acts of David Blaine. Celebrity Driving School led up to the event, with the test results announced during the telethon: they all failed.
The hosts of "Red Nose Day" 2003 were:
- Jonathan Ross
- Lenny Henry
- Anthony McPartlin
- Declan Donnelly
- Vic Reeves
- Bob Mortimer
- Graham Norton
- Adam Buxton
- Joe Cornish
Shows included[link]
As usual a variety of specially filmed versions of television shows were made. Popular BBC talent show Fame Academy returned as Comic Relief does Fame Academy. Other shows included:
Harry Potter and the Secret Chamberpot of Azerbaijan, a parody of Harry Potter, starring Dawn French as Harry Potter, Jennifer Saunders as Ron Weasley and Miranda Richardson as Hermione Granger.
2005 event[link]
The 2005 Red Nose Day was held on 11 March, and was hosted by a collection of television stars:
The 2005 event was also noteworthy for supporting the Make Poverty History campaign – many of the videos recorded for the MPH campaign (including videos by Bono and Nelson Mandela) were shown throughout the evening. Over £63m was raised as of November 2005.[citation needed]
Shows included[link]
As usual a variety of specially filmed versions of television shows were made. Popular BBC talent show Comic Relief does Fame Academy was attended by celebrities singing cover versions of songs. Viewers voted for their favourite, with the proceeds going to the cause and the celebrity. Other shows included:
- Absolutely Fabulous
- Little Britain I Want That One
- The Vicar of Dibley
- Green Wing
- Spider-Plant Man, a parody of Spider-Man starring Rowan Atkinson.
2005's telethon, more than any other, severely overran[citation needed] and many pre-filmed segments were cut short, including Harry Hill's TV Burp, Smith and Jones, and Lenny Henry as Condoleezza Rice. The uncut versions have never been screened.
McFly released the official single, a double A-side of "All About You/You've Got a Friend" which reached Number 1 in the UK singles chart, and also Number 1 in the Irish singles chart. The cover is predominantly red and features the members of McFly dressed in red, wearing red noses, in honour of Red Nose Day.
Donation progress[link]
Times approximate and amounts rounded to the nearest million where not stated exactly:[citation needed]
- 7:30 pm – £2 million
- 8:30 pm – £7 million
- 9:30 pm – £18 million
- 10 pm – £22 million
- 11:30 pm – £31 million
- 12:45 am – £35 million
- 02:00 am – £38 million
Raised by March 2006: £65 m.[citation needed]
2007 event[link]
Main article: Red Nose Day 2007
2007's Red Nose Day was held on 16 March. Its tagline is "The Big One" which is also representative of the novelty nose. Walkers, Kleenex and Andrex also promoted the charity, as well as Sainsbury's.
Some of the sketches shown were: The Vicar of Dibley.[9] Also intended to be shown was A Question of Comedy, a comedy quiz utilising the format (and set) of A Question of Sport, and hosted by Jack Dee, with team captains Frank Skinner, Dara Ó Briain,[10] and Mr. Bean and guests including Jade Goody. However, in light of the Celebrity Big Brother racism controversy involving Goody, the pre-recorded segment was scrapped by BBC producers.[11][12]
In the lead up to Red Nose Day many different fund raising events occurred:
- Beginning Friday 9 March 2007, the BBC Radio 1 breakfast team staged a tour around the UK entitled The Chris Moyles Rallyoke. The tour involved seven Karaoke nights held in a well known UK location featuring members of the public and well known celebrities and music artists. Most Radio 1 shows report on their progress, and hold competitions to win tickets to be at the final on Red Nose Day, and also to win the contents of a truck donated by various celebrities. As well as raising money at each event, the profit of the phone-in competitions go to Comic Relief making a total of £600,000[13]
- Televised events included a third series of Comic Relief Does Fame Academy, and a celebrity version of The Apprentice entitled Comic Relief Does The Apprentice has also been screened. Also a special hybrid of Top of the Pops and Top Gear titled Top Gear of the Pops was made for Red Nose Day. It featured its presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May singing with Justin Hawkins, as well as Top Gear segments such as The Cool Wall.
- Fund raising merchandise sold during the 2007 campaign included the Big One (Red Nose) itself, 'Walkears', an Andrex Puppy with a red nose, a special Little Britain Live DVD and the official single, which was a cover of Aerosmith's 'Walk This Way' sung by Girls Aloud and Sugababes.
- The last episode of the Vicar of Dibley was aired as part of the show, starring the usual cast. It featured Sting taking part with a celebrity and non-entity television show, swapping wives with the vicar's husband Harry.
- The special Little Britain Live featured famous people such as: Dennis Waterman, Chris Moyles, Jonathan Ross, Kate Moss and Russell Brand. Kate Moss played a chav, Russell Brand played a transvestite, and both Chris Moyles and Jonathan Ross were brought on as either small parts, or people who came up to the audience to be embarrassed.
- There were several sketches from Catherine Tate: in which David Tennant (who she would work with again a year later in Doctor Who, which is referenced to & joked about within the sketch) became a school teacher; Daniel Craig fell in love with Tate; mouthy teenager Lauren was given work experience at 10 Downing Street, leading to Tony Blair using her catchphrase "Am I bovvered?"; and foul-mouthed "Nan" appeared with Noel Edmonds on Deal or No Deal.
- To gain additional money, Peter Kay and Matt Lucas released a cover of The Proclaimers hit, I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles), and released it as a single 'I Would Roll (500 Miles)' (both were playing wheelchair bound characters from Little Britain and Phoenix Nights). It also featured numerous celebrity guests.
- There was also a live show from The Mighty Boosh.
Donation progress[link]
Times approximate:[citation needed]
- 7.25 pm – £2,256,037
- 8.19 pm – £7,430,542 (£2,000,136 raised by TK Maxx selling Red Nose Day t-shirts in store)
- 9.09 pm – £15,139,826 (£1,001,219 raised by Walkers WalkEars)
- 9.48 pm – £22,148,068 (£7,008,242 raised by Sainsbury's)
- 9.54 pm – £26,820,554
- 11.30 pm – £27,420,554 (£600,000 raised by BBC Radio 1)
- 11.31 pm – £27,771,803 (£351,249 raised by Müller)
- 11.52 pm – £34,269,843
- 12.39 am – £34,346,177 (£76,334 from Andrex)
- 03.03 am – £40,236,142
- By 16 November 2007, a record-breaking £67,250,099.[citation needed]
2009 event[link]
Main article: Red Nose Day 2009
The 2009 event took place on Friday 13 March 2009. Fundraisers had three different nose designs to choose from: "this one", "that one" and "the other one" – all with different facial expressions. The Saturdays provided the official single, a cover of 'Just Can't Get Enough'.
A variety of events and promotions took place in the run up to the big day. Comic Relief's Chief Executive announced that the UK's landmarks were going red before the big day. Claudia Winkleman and Steve Jones presented a new Comic Relief show called Let's Dance for Comic Relief. A special limited edition Mr. Men book, Mr. Funny's Red Nose Day,[14] went on sale with £2 from the sale of each book going to Comic Relief. Between 3 February and 23 March 2009, Kimberley Walsh, Cheryl Cole, Gary Barlow, Chris Moyles, and Fearne Cotton raised money by lending their voices to the BT Speaking Clock. Dialling 123 was one of the ways BT hopes to raise more than £300,000, as the company donated 10p for each call received from a BT landline.[15] The Red Nose Climb saw nine celebrities successfully scale the peak of Kilimanjaro at 19,330 feet (5,890 m) to reach the summit of Africa's highest mountain to raise money for Comic Relief.[16] On 27 February 2009, Gary Barlow, Ronan Keating, Chris Moyles, Ben Shephard, Cheryl Cole, Kimberley Walsh, Denise Van Outen, Fearne Cotton, and Alesha Dixon set off to Tanzania to tackle Mount Kilimanjaro with project manager and guide Jeremy Gane of Charity Challenge. The Climb has already raised in excess of £3.3 million with over £1.8 million coming from the audience of Radio 1 (a record for the station). All nine celebrities reached the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro on Saturday 7 March 2009. Cheryl Cole, Fearne Cotton, Denise Van Outen and Ben Shephard reached the summit first at sunrise.
The following took place during the live broadcast on the night:
- David Tennant and Davina McCall presented the first hour of the main live Comic Relief show.
- There was a special compilation edition of Harry Hill's TV Burp.
- There was a special edition of The Royle Family.
- French and Saunders came out of retirement to make a parody of the movie Mamma Mia! (film) – the sketch itself was referred by Richard Curtis to be his favourite part of the 2009 event
- The cast of Outnumbered recorded something for the night.
- David Tennant and Davina McCall went head to head in a Mastermind special.
- There were special episodes of The Catherine Tate Show and Little Britain USA (with Robbie Williams) for the evening.
- Fearne Cotton, Reggie Yates, and Noel Fielding presented a special Top of The Pops for RND 09.
- Comic Relief Does The Apprentice, featuring celebrities like Carol Voderman, Gok Wan, Patsy Palmer, and Jonathan Ross attempting to make a non-electrical toy for Sir Alan Sugar.
- A special episode of Gavin and Stacey: Nessa (Ruth Jones) and Bryn (Rob Brydon), having won a local karaoke competition, make their way to Las Vegas for a championship, where they meet Tom Jones and sing the Bee Gees-written "Islands in the Stream". The track was released by Universal Music and reached Number 1 in the Official UK Top 40.
- A special episode of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, crossing over with Grownups and Coming of Age, was scheduled and aired on BBC3.
- A special edition of The Sarah Jane Adventures featuring Ronnie Corbett.
- A number of sketches based on Dragons' Den set in Victorian times, with Victorian inventions, exaggerated Victorian attitudes towards investing, and all five Dragons playing the part of the Victorian entrepreneurs. Harry Enfield plays the parts of the Victorian Deborah Meaden and Peter Jones, while Paul Whitehouse plays the parts of the Victorian Theo Paphitis, Duncan Bannatyne and Evan Davis the presenter.
- Little Britain met Catherine Tate.
- Armstrong and Miller teamed up for a few sketches with Mitchell and Webb.
This was the first Comic Relief show to feature no input from Rowan Atkinson and no comedic material from Lenny Henry.
Donation progress[link]
Times approximate:[citation needed]
- 7:50 pm – £3,017,772
- 8:29 pm – £13,667,550 (£3,500,889 Raised in T.K. Maxx stores through Red Nose Day T-shirt sales, and fundraising from T.K. Maxx staff)
- 9:34 pm – £29,748,187 (£9m raised by Sainsbury's, the largest single donation in Comic Relief history)
- 9:57 pm – £32,802,411 (£5m of this will be used to pay for one million mosquito nets)
- 11:25 pm – £41,799,343 (£750,000 raised through Wine Relief, and £6m from an anonymous donor. This is also the first of the highest ever totals announced live on the night in the history of Red Nose Day)
- 12:52 am – £54,690,437
- 2:08 am – £57,809,938 (total raised announced during telethon event beats the 2007 record by £17.5 million, and may well go on to beat its overall record total.)
By 2 April 2009 – £65,699,850[citation needed]
Also, by 2 July 2009 – £80 million had been raised, and the final total for the 2009 event stood at £82.3m.[17]
Presenters[link]
| Times (approx) |
Presenters |
|---|---|
| 19.00–20.40 | David Tennant and Davina McCall[18] |
| 20.40–22.00 | Jonathan Ross and Claudia Winkleman |
| 22.00–22.30 (BBC Two) |
Fearne Cotton, Reggie Yates, and Noel Fielding |
| 22.30–01.00 | Fern Britton and Alan Carr |
| 01.00–02.00 | Graham Norton |
| 02.00–03.40 | James Corden and Mathew Horne |
2011 event[link]
Main article: Red Nose Day 2011
The 2011 event took place on Friday 18 March 2011. A staggering amount was raised on the night, reaching a record-breaking £74.3 million, the highest ever 'on the night' total.
The evening was hosted by Lenny Henry, Fearne Cotton, James Corden, Davina McCall, Michael McIntyre, Graham Norton, Jack Whitehall, Kevin Bridges, Claudia Winkleman and Jonathan Ross. Whitehall and Bridges hosted the late night show with some of their favourite comedy clips in their Comic Relief Late Night Lock In. Pieces included Harry Hill (an Autumnwatch-based update of the Goodies episode "Scatty Safari"), James Corden as Smithy, a crossover between Miranda and Pineapple Dance Studios, the cast of Outnumbered, The Inbetweeners Rude Road Trip, Geraldine McQueen duetting with Susan Boyle, Goldie Lookin' Chain's Newport State Of Mind, a celebrity chef-themed episode of The Choir, the premiere of the Comic Relief video for Take That's single Happy Now, Armstrong and Miller, a preview presentation of Chris Lilley's Angry Boys, a special edition of Alan Partridge's Mid-Morning Matters, and Uptown Downstairs Abbey – a parody from Jennifer Saunders and Adrian Edmondson (produced in the style of French and Saunders) including appearances by Victoria Wood, Harry Enfield, Joanna Lumley, Patrick Barlow, Dale Winton, Olivia Colman, Tim Vine, Simon Callow and the voices of Michael Gambon and Harry Hill. As well as comedy shows, special canonical mini-episodes of EastEnders and Doctor Who were also aired. Musical guests included Adele, Annie Lennox, Elbow, JLS, Take That, The Wanted, and The Axis of Awesome. The event included many other famous figures including Ross Kemp, Gordon Brown, Sebastian Coe, David Cameron, Rio Ferdinand, Paul McCartney and many more.
In addition to the continued absence of Rowan Atkinson, two more prominent supporters of the charity were absent for the 2011 – this was the first ever Comic Relief event to feature no input from Dawn French, and the first for over ten years to feature no input from Matt Lucas. Similarly, several other frequent contributors from previous years appeared only in appeal films or as part of the 24 Hour Panel People event. Lenny Henry however finally returned after an absence to perform comedic material.
TV & Radio programmes that led up to the main event include:
- Let's Dance for Comic Relief (19 February – 12 March)
- Famous, Rich and in the Slums.
- 24 Hour Panel People took place for twenty four hours from 5–6 March. The event took in a succession of popular programmes, with David Walliams a constant presence for the whole 24 hours, taking on various roles.
- Comic Relief does Glee Club
- The BT Red Nose Desert Trek
- Comic Relief: Girl On Wire
- Radio 1's Longest Show Ever with Chris Moyles and Comedy Dave for Comic Relief
Snack food manufacturer, Walkers created four new crisps flavours for Comic Relief 2011. Each flavour is named after a British comedian; Frank Skinner's Roast Dinner, Jimmy Con Carrne, Steak and Al Pie and Stephen Fry Up.[19] The Wanted released the official comic relief 2011 single "Gold Forever" on 13 March. Other Comic Relief singles include George Michael's cover of the 1987 song "True Faith" by New Order and the Take That song "Happy Now" featuring Take That and Fake That consisting of David Walliams, James Corden, John Bishop, Alan Carr and Catherine Tate.[20] More than a hundred celebrities are to be involved in "Twit Relief", an event on Twitter.[21] Lord Prescott is going to read the Shipping Forecast on BBC Radio 4 to raise money for Comic Relief on Saturday 19 March 2011 at approximately 00:48. British Airways set a new Guinness World Record for 'highest stand up comedy gig in the world' in support of Red Nose Day 2011, with Dara Ó Briain, Jack Whitehall and Jon Richardson. The airline raised £800,747 for Comic Relief through their charity partnership 'Flying Start'.
2013 event[link]
The producer of Comic Relief has no plans for Comic Relief Next Year.
Presenters[link]
| Times (approx) |
Presenters |
|---|---|
| 19:00 – 20:05 | Michael McIntyre and Claudia Winkleman |
| 20:05 – 22:00 | Graham Norton and Davina McCall |
| 21:10 – 22:00 | Dermot O'Leary and Davina McCall |
| 22:00 – 22:35 BBC Two |
Lenny Henry and Fearne Cotton |
| 22:35 – 23:10 | Lenny Henry and Fearne Cotton |
| 23:10 – 00:40 | Jonathan Ross and Claudia Winkelman with Jimmy Carr from 00:00 |
| 00:40 – 02:15 | Alan Carr, Fearne Cotton and Claudia Winkleman with Davina McCall until 1:15 |
| 02:15 – 04:00 | Jack Whitehall and Kevin Bridges |
TV ratings[link]
| Year | Broadcast date |
BBC One total viewing |
BBC One weekly rank |
BBC Two total viewing |
BBC Two programme weekly rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | 12 March | 6,830,000 | 20th | 3,130,000 | 13th |
| 2001 | 16 March | 8,510,000 | 8th | N/A | N/A |
| 2003 | 14 March | 11,740,000 | 4th | 6,010,000 | 1st |
| 2005 | 11 March | 10,940,000 | 4th | 4,720,000 | 1st |
| 2007 | 16 March | 9,730,000 | 2nd | 6,400,000 | 1st |
| 2009 | 13 March | 9,840,000 | 1st | 7,090,000 | 1st |
| 2011 | 18 March | 10,260,000 | 1st | 7,530,000 | 1st |
| Source: BARB | |||||
Merchandise[link]
Various items of merchandise have been sold to promote and raise money for Comic Relief. In 1991, The Totally Stonking, Surprisingly Educational And Utterly Mindboggling Comic Relief Comic was published by Fleetway. Conceived, plotted and edited by Neil Gaiman, Richard Curtis, Grant Morrison and Peter K. Hogan, it featured contributions from a vast array of British comics talent, including Jamie Delano, Garth Ennis, Dave Gibbons, Mark Millar, Simon Bisley, Mark Buckingham, Steve Dillon, D'Israeli, Jamie Hewlett and Bryan Talbot. (Alan Moore, arguably Britain's most famous comics writer, was not credited as working on the book having sworn never to work for Fleetway again, but was said[22] to have worked with partner Melinda Gebbie on her pages.) The comic was unique in that it featured appearances by characters from across the spectrum of comics publishers, including Marvel and DC superheroes, Beano, Dandy, Eagle and Viz characters, Doctor Who, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, in addition to a cavalcade of British comedy figures (both real and fictional). These were all linked by the twin framing narratives of the Comic Relief night itself, and the tale of "Britain's meanest man" Sir Edmund Blackadder being persuaded to donate money to the event. The comic "sold out in minutes", raising over £40,000[citation needed] for the charity, and is now a highly prized collectors' item. Comic Relief have also sold Fairtrade Cotton Socks from a number of vendors. This is mainly for their Sport Relief charity.
In 1993 a computer platform game was released, called Sleepwalker. The game featured voice overs from Lenny Henry and Harry Enfield, and several other references to Comic Relief and tomatoes; the theme for the 1993 campaign.
In 2001 J. K. Rowling wrote two books for Comic Relief based on her famous Harry Potter series, entitled "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" and "Quidditch Through the Ages".
In 2007, Walkers complemented the usual merchandise by adding their own take on the red nose, promoting red ears instead. The large ears, dubbed 'Walk-ears', are based on a very old joke involving the actual ears of ex-footballer Gary Lineker, who has fronted their ad campaign since the early 1990s. Walkers previously promoted the charity in 2005, making four limited edition unusual crisp flavours.
The 2007 game for Red Nose Day, “Let it Flow”, could be played online. This game was developed by Matmi, worldwide viral marketeers, and set in the African wilderness. Mischievous hyenas had messed up the water irrigation system which fed the crops. Using your brain, you had to help re-arrange the pipes to let the water flow to the crops to keep them alive. Once the pipes were arranged, you needed to operate the elephant’s trunk to pump the water through the water pipes.
For the 2007 campaign Andrex, known for their ad campaign fronted by a Labrador puppy, gave away toy puppies with red noses.
As a Supporting Partner Jackpotjoy has launched two Red Nose Day Games for Red Nose Day 2011.
The Red Nose[link]
The most prominent symbol of Comic Relief is a plastic/foam "red nose", which is given in various supermarkets and charity shops such as Oxfam in exchange for a donation to the charity and to make others laugh. People are encouraged to wear the noses on Red Nose Day to help raise awareness of the charity. The design of the nose has been changed each year, beginning with a fairly plain one, which later grew arms, turned into a tomato and even changed colour. In 2007, the red nose was made of foam; this was to facilitate the "growing" of the nose (by rolling it in the user's hands) to keep in line with that year's tagline, The Big One. See the table below. Larger noses are also available, and are designed to be attached to the fronts of cars, buildings, and, in 2009, a 6 metre diameter inflatable nose was attached to the DFDS Seaways cruiseferry King of Scandinavia. However, the nose's material used for buildings was classed as a fire hazard. and was banned from the Comic Relief Does Fame Academy shows.
Chronology of noses[link]
As of 2011, there have been 17 different Red noses over 13 Comic Relief shows. (Three noses were used for 2009 & 2011).
| Year | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1988 | The Red Nose | Plain red plastic. |
| 1989 | My Nose | Had a face, made with rose scented plastic. |
| 1991 | Hands Nose | Had hands and a face, made of plastic. |
| 1993 | Tomato Nose | Had a tomato stalk and a face, made of plastic. |
| 1995 | The Heat Sensitive Nose | Changed either yellow or pink in the heat with 'MY NOSE' on it. |
| 1997 | Shaggy Nose | Clear plastic shell covered in red fur. |
| 1999 | The Big Red Hooter | Faceless with gold glitter, and when squeezed it 'hooted'. |
| 2001 | Whoopee Nose | Red head with inflated cheeks, when squeezed the tongue inflated. |
| 2003 | Hairy Nose | Had gooey eyes that squeezed out and a tuft of red hairs. It came with gel for the hair. When worn upside down, the hair can resemble a moustache. |
| 2005 | Big Hair & Beyond (Chad) | Had a smiley face and colourful elastic hair. It came with red and yellow face paint and stickers for the nose. |
| 2007 | The Big One | Faceless, made of foam which made it more comfortable; came with stickers to decorate the nose with, and Chocpix. |
| 2009 | This One That One The Other One |
Three noses were available. Nose 1 (This One) had a big smile with mouth open. Nose 2 (That One) had glasses on and a smile with the teeth closed. Nose 3 (The Other One) had a shocked look.
All three came with six stickers depicting each of the noses, the RND 09 logo and tag-line "Do something funny for money"; a sticker to introduce your nose by name, which said, "Hello, my nose is:" shortly followed by a blank to write in a name; and a small booklet of nose-related jokes. |
| 2011 | Monster Noses | There were three different 'monster noses' for RND 2011. Their names were Honkus, who had a furry face with a large mouth with sharp teeth and small eyes near the top of the head. Chucklechomp, who had small round spectacles and a large mouth, and Captain Conk who was roughly based on a pirate with a black skull and crossbones bandana and an eyepatch. Each nose came with a circular leaflet which contained monster related jokes and pictures of the three monster noses. 2011 was also the year an Augmented Reality version of the nose was created as part of the Red Nose Day website. Via a webcam the users head was converted into a giant red nose which could then be recorded as a short movie and posted to Facebook and/or YouTube. |
Chronology of car noses[link]
A selection of Red Nose Day "car noses" have been produced over the years, to show support for the charity while out on the road. They have traditionally been a curved nose which attaches to the car's radiator grille. In 2009, this was replaced with a magnetic design owing to safety concerns.[23] The original grill-attachable design returned for 2011, for the first time since 1999.[24]
| Year | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1989 | The Red Nose | A curved, dome-like plastic red nose which attached to the car's radiator grille at the front. |
| 1991 | The Hands Nose | A red plastic nose with hands, which attached to the car's radiator grille at the front. |
| 1993 | The Tomato Nose | A red plastic nose with a green tomato stalk, which attached to the car's radiator grille at the front with cable ties. |
| 1997 | The Aerial Nose | A small red plastic nose which attached to the car's aerial. This nose was sold in Texaco fuel stations. |
| 1999 | The Hands Nose | Another red plastic nose with hands and '1999' in golden adhesive numbers, which attached to the car's radiator grille at the front with cable ties. |
| 2001 | The Big Sticky Car Nose | A small plastic nose with wings, synonymous to The Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament on Rolls-Royce cars, for attaching to the car's bonnet with a suction cup on the base. The Big Sticky Nose featured a face designed by Aardman animators, the creators of Wallace and Gromit. |
| 2003 | The Hairy Air Freshener Nose | A small plastic nose with a smiley face and red tuft of hair, attached to the driver's rear-view mirror. |
| 2005 | The Air Freshener Nose | A small plastic nose with a smiley face and colourful koosh-like elastic hair, for attaching to the driver's rear-view mirror. |
| 2007 | Big Smelly Nose Balls | Two furry air freshener noses with black spectacles, which dangled from the driver's rear-view mirror, synonymous with furry dice from the 1950s. |
| 2009 | The Magnetic Nose | A thin and flat magnetic nose, with a grinning face, which attached magnetically to the car's bonnet. |
| 2011 | The Monster Nose | A return to the curved plastic nose, featuring a monster face, which attached to the car's radiator grille at the front with cable ties. |
Comic Relief charity singles[link]
In April 1986 the first Comic Relief charity single was released. It featured Cliff Richard and the cast of The Young Ones in a rendition of "Living Doll".
Some of the money raised from the sale of each single is donated to Comic Relief. Normally a song is released just before the official Red Nose Day. There have been exceptions, such as "(I want to be) Elected" which was released to coincide with the 1992 UK general election. Before 1995's song, they were all more-or-less comedy records, mostly involving an actual band or singer, and a comedy group. From 1995 on, they have been generally more serious, although the videos still feature comical moments.
2003 saw a return to the format of old. From 2005 onwards, two comic relief songs have been released each red nose day, a song by a mainstream artist, and a comedy song.
| Release date |
Title | Artist(s) | Highest chart position reached |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 1986 | "Living Doll" | Cliff Richard and the cast of The Young Ones | No. 1 |
| December 1987 | "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" | Mel & Kim (Mel Smith and Kim Wilde) | No. 3 |
| February 1989 | "Help!" | Bananarama & La na nee nee noo noo (French and Saunders with Kathy Burke) | No. 3 |
| March 1991 | "The Stonk" | Hale and Pace (backing band includes David Gilmour and Brian May) | No. 1 |
| March 1991 | "Helping Hand" | Numerous children's TV puppet personalities, including characters from 'The House of Gristle', 'Fraggle Rock', 'Rainbow', 'Roland Rat', 'Thunderbirds', 'Round the Bend', 'Bill & Ben', 'The Gophers', 'Spitting Image', 'Jim Hensons Tale of the Bunny Picnic' and more! | No. |
| April 1992 | "(I Want to Be) Elected" | Smear Campaign (Bruce Dickinson, Rowan Atkinson, Angus Deayton) | No. 9 |
| February 1993 | "Stick It Out" | Right Said Fred | No. 4 |
| May 1994 | "Absolutely Fabulous" | Absolutely Fabulous (Pet Shop Boys, Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley) | No. 6 |
| March 1995 | "Love Can Build a Bridge" | Cher, Chrissie Hynde, Neneh Cherry and Eric Clapton | No. 1 |
| 3 March 1997 | "Mama" / "Who Do You Think You Are" | Spice Girls | No. 1 |
| 1 March 1999 | "When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going" | Boyzone | No. 1 |
| March 2001 | "Uptown Girl" | Westlife | No. 1 |
| March 2003 | "Spirit in the Sky" | Gareth Gates and the Kumars | No. 1 |
| 7 March 2005 | "All About You"/"You've Got a Friend" | McFly | No. 1 |
| 14 March 2005 | "Is This the Way to Amarillo" 1 | Tony Christie & Peter Kay | No. 1 |
| 12 March 2007 | "Walk This Way" | Sugababes vs. Girls Aloud | No. 1 |
| 19 March 2007 | "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" 2 | The Proclaimers & Brian Potter & Andy Pipkin 2 | No. 1 |
| 2 March 2009 | "Just Can't Get Enough" | The Saturdays | No. 2 |
| 8 March 2009 | "Barry Islands in the Stream" | Ruth Jones and Rob Brydon, featuring Tom Jones and Robin Gibb 3[25] | No. 1 |
| 13 March 2011 | "Gold Forever" | The Wanted | No. 3 |
| 13 March 2011 | "I Know Him So Well" | Susan Boyle & Geraldine McQueen | No.11 ( Week end 27th) |
- ^1 "Is This the Way to Amarillo", though released expressly with the intent of proceeds going to Comic Relief, was not an official Comic Relief single. The song was originally performed by Peter Kay (lipsynching to Tony Christie's voice) during the evening, and was later released as a single. It was the number one single for seven weeks, and in its first week it outsold the rest of the Top 20 combined.
- ^2 In 2007, a version of The Proclaimers song "500 Miles", released on 19 March, featured Peter Kay and Matt Lucas as their wheelchair-user characters Brian Potter and Andy Pipkin. Before its official release, the song reached Number 3 based on downloads alone. The single reached Number one on 25 March, knocking official Comic Relief single "Walk This Way" off the top spot.
- ^3 In 2009, the comedy release took prominence over the single release by a mainstream recording artist. Gavin and Stacey's Ruth Jones and Rob Brydon covered "Islands in the Stream" for the event, with this being released on the week of Comic Relief. The Saturdays released their record a week earlier.
In addition, the first Red Nose Day Schools' song ('Make Someone Happy') was published in 2007. A CD of the song, together with backing tracks and fundraising ideas was sent free of charge to all primary schools in the UK in February by the education music publisher 'Out of the Ark Music'. Schools will be free to use the song in assemblies, singathons, or other fundraising activities. A second Red Nose Day Song has been released for every school in the UK to use free of charge. It can be downloaded from the Red Nose Day 09 website, or watched on YouTube, and a copy is being sent to every primary school in the UK. It has again been published by "Out of the Ark" music, and contains a more upbeat melody than the 2007 song. It was recorded at Hook Studios, Hook, Surrey, by the Out of the Ark Choir, which is completely made up of children. The children in the video wear Stella McCartney's special edition Comic Relief T-Shirts, and has been filmed in black and white so only the red stands out.
Criticisms[link]
There has been some concern about the lack of gender equality in the causes supported by Comic Relief, with much funding going to politicised women's charities or charities focusing on females. Writing in The Spectator Ross Clark raised the question, "why do all these women’s charities ... feel the need to disguise their fundraising in the pratfest that is Comic Relief rather than appealing directly to the public?" He added, "are they worried that if the British public realised where their money was going they would be less inclined to be so generous?"[26]
There is also concern over adverts for unpaid interns to work alongside highly paid BBC and Comic Relief staff.[27]
The British Stammering Association criticised comedian Lenny Henry for his opening sketch for the 2011 Comic Relief, during which he spoofed the film The King's Speech and grew impatient with Colin Firth's portrayal of King George VI as he stammered over his speech. The Sun reported that the British Stammering Association had branded the sketch as "a gross and disgusting gleefulness at pointing out someone else's misfortune".[28][29]
Similar events outside the United Kingdom[link]
United States[link]
Main article: Comic Relief USA
Inspired by the British charity, a United States Comic Relief charity was founded in 1986 by Bob Zmuda.
Comic Relief is an irregularly held event, televised on Home Box Office (HBO), which has raised and distributed nearly US$50 million toward providing health care services to homeless people throughout the United States. Comedians Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, and Whoopi Goldberg are hosts of the event.
The 1989 HBO Comic Relief show debuted the song "Mr. President", written by Joe Sterling, Ray Reach and Mike Loveless. The song was sung by Al Jarreau and Natalie Cole.
On 18 November 2006, the event was revived as a fundraiser for those affected by Hurricane Katrina, and was simulcast on TBS.[30]
Richard Curtis also created the Idol Gives Back special for American Idol, which follows the same basic premise as Comic Relief, with specially filmed shorts, performances and footage of the stars of the show visiting impoverished countries.
Australia[link]
In 1988, the Red Nose Day concept was adopted by the SIDS and Kids organisation to help raise funds for research into sudden infant death syndrome. Since then, Red Nose Day in Australia is held annually on the last Friday of June.[31]
An Australian version of Comic Relief, Comic Relief Australia, has also been set up.[32] It plans to divide the money raised between Australian causes (at least 40%) and overseas charities largely in Asia Pacific (at least 40%).[citation needed]
Following a campaign encouraging people to buy articles such as red wristbands, the first telethon-style event was held on 6 November 2005 on the Seven Network. It followed the established format, with comedy interspersed with examples of the sorts of charities to benefit. According to its website, this raised over AUS $800,000. Another telethon was broadcast on 27 November 2006 on Seven Network. The 2006 Comic Relief Show was held under the title '50 Years of Laughs' celebrating 50 years of Television in Australia. It was hosted by Colin Lane, and featured presenters such as Amanda Keller, Mikey Robbins, Ugly Dave Grey and Derryn Hinch interviewing Kylie Mole.
Germany[link]
The German TV station Pro 7 initiated a similar event in 2003. By selling red noses, money is collected for the charity foundations PowerChild, Deutsche Kinder- und Jugendstiftung (lit., German Child and Youth Foundation), and Comic Relief. The event is called 'Red Nose Day', and took place annually in March or April from 2003 to 2006. However ratings and the collected donations fell way short of expectations in 2006, resulting in no main show being produced in 2007 and 2008. In 2003, Nena (who is famous for her hit song 99 Red Balloons) released an updated version of her song Wunder Gescheh'n (miracles happen) for the charity. In 2010, the Red Nose Day returned on Pro7. It took place on 25 November.
Russia[link]
A similar charity campaign, entitled "Red Nose, Kind Heart", was launched in Russia on 1 April 2007. The main goal of the drive, held between 1 April and 19 May 2007 by the Liniya Zhizni (Life Line) foundation, is raising money to help children afflicted with serious diseases (such as heart diseases).
Finland[link]
In 2002, the Finnish national broadcaster YLE started an annual charity event, which initially went under the title "Ylen hyvä". In 2007, the event adopted the name "Nenäpäivä" (Nose day), and the use of red noses to more closely follow the example of the British event.
Iceland[link]
Dagur rauða nefsins (Red Nose Day) has been held in support of UNICEF since 2006. It has featured the sale of red noses to raise funds and has enjoyed support and publicity from many local celebrities and televised events on the national broadcaster, RÚV
See also[link]
- Charity record
- Children in Need
- ChildLine
- Jane Tewson
- Sport Aid
- Sport Relief
- Band Aid
- USA for Africa
- The Secret Policeman's Balls
References and notes[link]
- ^ Our History | Comic Relief
- ^ Comic Relief, Registered Charity no. 326568 at the Charity Commission
- ^ Comic Relief, Registered Charity no. SC039730 at the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator
- ^ Vision & Principles for UK grant-making, [1], retrieved 12 March 2011
- ^ About Us | Comic Relief
- ^ "Entertainment | Red Nose Day squeaks into life". BBC News. 12 March 1999. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/295563.stm. Retrieved 14 March 2009.
- ^ "Red Nose Day 1997 – Small change, big difference". Comic relief. http://www.comicrelief.com/what_we_do/campaigns/red_nose_day/97. Retrieved 14 March 2009.
- ^ "Red Nose Day 1999 – The Record Breaker". Comic relief. http://www.comicrelief.com/what_we_do/campaigns/red_nose_day/99. Retrieved 14 March 2009.
- ^ "Vicar of Dibley to be resurrected". BBC News. 3 January 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6229007.stm. Retrieved 2 February 2007.
- ^ "A Question of Comedy". JackDee.com. 1 January 2007. http://www.jackdee.com/wp/?p=45. Retrieved 2 February 2007.
- ^ Price, Richard (27 January 2007). "Can anyone save Jade?". Daily Mail (London). http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=431835&in_page_id=1773. Retrieved 4 February 2007.
- ^ "Jade Goody axed from Comic Relief". BBC News. 22 February 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6385761.stm. Retrieved 24 February 2007.
- ^ "The Chris Moyles Rallyoke". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/chrismoyles/rallyoke/. Retrieved 16 March 2007.
- ^ "Mr. Funny book for Comic Relief". http://www.egmont.co.uk/mrmenzone/news.html.
- ^ "Celebrities set to climb Kilimanjaro as Comic Relief is summit special". The Sun. 2 February 2009. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/article2195086.ece. Retrieved 12 March 2009.
- ^ "The BT Red Nose Climb | Red Nose Day 09". Rednoseday.com. http://www.rednoseday.com/climb. Retrieved 12 March 2009. [dead link]
- ^ BBC News website, 19 March 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12778593
- ^ "Doctor Who – News". BBC. 6 March 2009. http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/s4/news/090306_news_01. Retrieved 12 March 2009.
- ^ Stephen Fry "Frank Skinner's Roast Dinner, Jimmy Con Carrne, Steak and Al Pie and Stephen Fry Up are the new Comic Relief flavours #walkersclash", Twitter, 24 January 2011, accessed 1 February 2011.
- ^ Take That Meet Fake That | Red Nose Day 2011
- ^ http://www.comicrelief.com/sites/default/files/doc/press_release/Twitrelief%20press%20release%20final%20for%20media%20centre.pdf
- ^ "Comics FAQ". Neil Gaiman. http://www.neilgaiman.com/faqs/comicsfaq. Retrieved 2 May 2010.
- ^ Health & safety killjoys ban 'dangerous' Comic Relief car accessory – Exclusive – mirror.co.uk
- ^ A Come Back For The Car Nose | Red Nose Day 2011
- ^ "Tom Jones and Rob Brydon Record Comic Relief Single". gigwise.com. 29 January 2008. http://www.gigwise.com/news/49035/Tom-Jones-And-Rob-Brydon-Record-Comic-Relief-Charity-Single. Retrieved 29 January 2009.
- ^ "Read the small print before you donate". The Spectator. UK. 21 March 2007. http://www.spectator.co.uk/spectator/thisweek/28675/part_3/read-the-small-print-before-you-donate.thtml. Retrieved 2 May 2010.
- ^ "Should Comic Relief pay their interns?". Graduate Fog. UK. 15 December 2010. http://graduatefog.co.uk/2010/1176/comic-relief-pay-interns/. Retrieved 1 October 2011.
- ^ Ryan Love (2011). "Lenny Henry criticised for 'Speech' spoof". Digital Spy. http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/a310070/lenny-henry-criticised-for-speech-spoof.html. Retrieved 21 March 2011.
- ^ "Lenny Henry's stammer joke is blasted". The Sun. 21 March 2011. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/3480049/Lenny-Henrys-stammer-joke-is-blasted.html. Retrieved 22 March 2011.
- ^ "'Comic Relief' Returns to HBO". zap2it.com. 6 September 2006. http://www.zap2it.com/tv/news/zap-comicreliefhbotbs,0,1080956.story?coll=zap-news-headlines. Retrieved 2 February 2007.
- ^ "Australian Red Nose Day Homepage". http://www.rednoseday.com.au/. Retrieved 2 February 2007.
- ^ [2]
External links[link]
- Red Nose Day web site
- Official Comic Relief web site
- Official 2009 fundraiser for Comic Relief – Mr. Funny's Red Nose Day
- Red Nose Day Moblog (Mobile Blogging)
- Red Nose Day mini-site
- Official Comic Relief USA web site
- Official Comic Relief Australia web site
- Красный нос – доброе сердце! (Red Nose- Kind Heart)
- Comic Relief condemned over Burma link from The Guardian
- Official Comic Relief Fairtrade Cotton Socks
- Intelligent Giving profile of Comic Relief UK
- Red Nose Day Game 2007
- Article: No funny business with Comic Relief
- Red Nose Day Games 2011
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This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
