- published: 04 Dec 2012
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Jonathan Peter "Jon" Culshaw (born 2 June 1968) is an English impressionist and comedian, best known for his work on the radio comedy Dead Ringers since 2000.
Culshaw has voiced a number of characters for ITV shows including 2DTV (2001), Spitting Image (1994–96) and Newzoids (2015), as well as appearing in The Impressions Show alongside Debra Stephenson since 2009.
Culshaw was born in Ormskirk and educated at St Bede's RC High School and St John Rigby College, Wigan.
Culshaw's radio career began in hospital radio in Ormskirk. His first job was at Red Rose Radio (now Rock FM) in Preston in 1987, where, even then, he used to occasionally read the weather in the voice of Frank Bruno. He did voice-over work, then was catapulted to prominence with Spitting Image, where he voiced around forty characters, including John Major, then the Prime Minister.
Culshaw is also a former student of Canterbury Christ Church University.
For around four years in the late 1980s, Culshaw was a DJ on commercial radio station Viking FM, based in Hull, and also had a breakfast show on Pennine Radio (now The Pulse of West Yorkshire) and Radio Wave in Blackpool. It was a receptionist at Viking FM who persuaded Culshaw that he should go onstage with his impressions and make it his living. Culshaw later appeared on BBC Radio 2's It's Been a Bad Week, appeared as a guest on the BBC Two Star Trek Night quiz in August 1996, and was also a regular guest on the Chris Moyles afternoon show on BBC Radio 1 from 1998 to 2002, where he would phone up commercial organisations such as a Kwik-Fit garage in the voice of Patrick Moore or Obi-Wan Kenobi politely requesting whether they could service his X-wing fighter, and how much time it would take.
Ricky Dene Gervais (/dʒərˈveɪz/; born 25 June 1961) is an English comedian, actor, director, producer, writer and former pop singer and manager.
Gervais worked initially in the music industry, attempting a career as a pop star in the 1980s as the singer of the new wave act Seona Dancing and working as the manager of the then-unknown band Suede before turning to comedy. Gervais appeared on The 11 O'Clock Show on Channel 4 between 1998 and 2000. In 2000, he was given a Channel 4 talk show, Meet Ricky Gervais, and then achieved greater mainstream fame a year later with his BBC television series The Office. It was followed by Extras in 2005. He co-wrote and co-directed both series with Stephen Merchant. In addition to writing and directing the shows, he played the lead roles of David Brent in The Office and Andy Millman in Extras. He will reprise his role as Brent in the upcoming comedy film Life on the Road.
He has also starred in the Hollywood films Ghost Town, and Muppets Most Wanted, and wrote, directed and starred in The Invention of Lying and the upcoming Special Correspondents. He has performed on four stand-up comedy tours and written the Flanimals book series. Gervais also starred with Merchant and Karl Pilkington in the podcast The Ricky Gervais Show, which has spawned various spin-offs starring Pilkington and produced by Gervais and Merchant. He hosted the Golden Globe Awards in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2016.