Charlie Skelton

Last updated

Charlie Skelton
BornUnited Kingdom
OccupationWriter, journalist, artist, actor
Alma mater University of Oxford
GenreComedy, journalism

Charlie Skelton is a comedy writer, journalist, artist and actor from Suffolk, England.

Contents

Early work

A University of Oxford graduate, he started out as a journalist, writing features for the Evening Standard and The Guardian .

Career

Skelton writes for several television programmes, including Have I Got News For You , 8 Out of 10 Cats , 10 O'Clock Live and The Big Fat Quiz of the Year . He has also written for A League of Their Own , The Eleven O'Clock Show , and FAQ U , and he was one of the writers on the MTV Europe Music Awards 2004 .

In 2009, he began to report on the Bilderberg Group for The Guardian (series title: Our Man at Bilderberg), with his first article entitled "Our man at Bilderberg: in pursuit of the world's most powerful cabal". [1] He has covered all the subsequent Bilderberg Group conferences: the 2010 conference in Sitges, Spain; the 2011 conference in St Moritz, Switzerland; the 2012 conference in Chantilly, Virginia, US; the 2013 conference which was held at The Grove, Watford; and the 2014 conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Skelton was the script editor on Charlie Brooker's comedy panel show You Have Been Watching and on Brooker's BBC Radio 4 show So Wrong It's Right . He was the co-founder, with Paul Carr, of The Friday Thing, a weekly email bulletin they started in 2001, [2] and, in 2004, of the short-lived weekly all-comment newspaper The London News Review, [3] with cartoons provided by Matt Groening. In 2005 he founded The Clacton Festival. [4]

Skelton and fellow writer Victoria Coren used to hold a job reviewing porn films for the Erotic Review . They soon decided that most of the porn they had to watch was terrible and believed they could do better themselves, so the two of them set about making their own porn film, The Naughty Twins. They wrote about the process of doing so, and of the many lessons they learned (mostly good), in their book Once More, with Feeling: How We Tried to Make the Greatest Porn Film Ever (2003).

Skelton and Coren also appeared as judges on the final episode of the reality TV show Double Entry. In 2006, Skelton appeared on the BBC One reality gameshow Just the Two of Us.

Art

In early 2000, Skelton put on a joint show with Hannah Borno at the Colville Place Gallery in Fitzrovia. [5]

Skelton's first solo show, "Art is Easy", was held in 2001 at the Colville Place Gallery. [6]

On 19–21 March 2003, he held a performance art exhibition, "The Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone from Suffolk", at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. [7]

Acting

The Human Zoo

Sometime prior to May 2002, when the documentary was released, Skelton was part of a TV miniseries named The Human Zoo. It was produced by London Weekend Television. The three part series aired on 11 May 2000 in the UK. The programme, which was subsequently made available on DVD and purchased by interested sociology, psychology and other professors around the world, was taught at college levels in the US, the UK and Australia.[ citation needed ]

Space Cadets

In 2005, Skelton was one of three actors posing as contestants in the Channel 4 spoof reality TV show Space Cadets . After weeks of training, Skelton and three genuine contestants were selected to go on a fake space mission. Afterwards Skelton wrote an essay about his part in the deception for The Guardian , part of which runs:

So, that was the oddest three-and-a-half weeks of my life. My poor brain is a scramble of half-truths, astronomical lies and unbridled lunacy. I've just scribbled a list of what I know for sure: I've been a mole on a fake reality show called Space Cadets; I have a Russian doll in my hand luggage; I've just spent the past five days in a flight simulator in a hangar on the Suffolk coast; and – last but by no means least – I've just spent the past five days in space. My default brain position aboard Earth Orbiter One was that we were 200 kilometres up, travelling at about seven kilometres per second. Too many things were telling me that for me to think otherwise. The simulator was too damned convincing. The Earth looked too serenely real whenever the pilots ushered us forward to the cockpit to view it. "This is truly humbling," I muttered, humbly, the first time I saw the planet spinning below us. I shuffled humbly back into the mid-deck and wrote a poem... [8]

Referring to their book Once More, With Feeling, Victoria Coren said, "Shooting a highbrow erotic movie in a room full of naked Dutch people is good practice for keeping a straight face in Space Cadets. I know it isn't the most honourable job, but I'm very proud of him." [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bilderberg Meeting</span> Annual private conference

The Bilderberg Meeting is an annual off-the-record forum established in 1954 to foster dialogue between Europe and North America. The group's agenda, originally to prevent another world war, is now defined as bolstering a consensus around free market Western capitalism and its interests around the globe. Participants include political leaders, experts, captains of industry, finance, academia, numbering between 120 and 150. Attendees are entitled to use information gained at meetings, but not attribute it to a named speaker. The group states that the purpose of this is to encourage candid debate while at the same time maintaining privacy, but critics from a wide range of viewpoints have called it into question, and it has provoked conspiracy theories from both the left and right.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Coren</span> English humourist, writer and satirist

Alan Coren was an English humourist, writer and satirist who was a regular panellist on the BBC radio quiz The News Quiz and a team captain on BBC television's Call My Bluff. Coren was also a journalist, and for almost a decade was the editor of Punch magazine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angela Rippon</span> English television presenter (born 1944)

Angela May Rippon is an English television journalist, newsreader, writer and presenter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jon Ronson</span> British-American journalist, author, and filmmaker

Jon Ronson is a Welsh-American journalist, author, and filmmaker. He is known for works such as Them: Adventures with Extremists (2001), The Men Who Stare at Goats (2004), and The Psychopath Test (2011). He has been described as a gonzo journalist, becoming a faux-naïf character in his stories. He produces informal but sceptical investigations of controversial fringe politics and science. He has published nine books and his work has appeared in publications such as The Guardian, City Life and Time Out. He has made several BBC Television documentary films and two documentary series for Channel 4.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harry Thompson</span> English novelist and biographer

Harry William Thompson was an English radio and television producer, comedy writer, novelist and biographer. He was the creator of the dark humour television series Monkey Dust, screened between 2003 and 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dave Rowntree</span> English drummer

David Alexander De Horne Rowntree is an English musician, politician, solicitor, composer and animator. He is the drummer for the rock band Blur and was a Labour Party councillor for Norfolk County Council from 2017 until 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charlie Simpson</span> British musician

Charles Robert Simpson, known professionally as Charlie Simpson, is an English singer, songwriter, and musician from Suffolk. He is a member of the BRIT Award winning pop-punk band Busted and he is also lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist in the post-hardcore band Fightstar. AllMusic has noted that Simpson is "perhaps the only pop star to make the convincing transition from fresh-faced boy bander to authentic hard rock frontman". Simpson is a multi-instrumentalist, playing guitar, bass, keyboard, piano and drums.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charlie Brooker</span> English writer, television presenter, and producer

Charlton Brooker is an English writer, television presenter, producer and satirist. He is the creator and co-showrunner of the sci-fi drama anthology series Black Mirror, and has written for comedy series such as Brass Eye, The 11 O'Clock Show, and Nathan Barley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Mitchell (comedian)</span> British comedian, actor, writer and television personality (born 1974)

David James Stuart Mitchell is a British comedian, actor, and writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giles Coren</span> British food critic, television presenter (born 1969)

Giles Robin Patrick Coren is a British columnist, food writer, and television and radio presenter. He has been a restaurant critic for The Times newspaper since 2002, and was named Food and Drink Writer of the Year at the British Press Awards in 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis XIV (band)</span> American rock band

Louis XIV is an American rock band from San Diego, California. The band has released four EPs between 2003 and 2007, and three albums between 2003 and 2008, the latter two of which were distributed by Atlantic Records. The band broke up in 2009, but in 2013, in an interview with The Reno Dispatch, Jason Hill confirmed that the band had decided to reunite.

Victoria Elizabeth Coren Mitchell is a British writer, TV presenter and professional poker player. She writes weekly columns for The Daily Telegraph and has hosted the BBC television quiz show Only Connect since 2008.

<i>Space Cadets</i> (TV series) 2005 British television programme

Space Cadets is a British television programme made by Zeppotron for Channel 4. Presented by Johnny Vaughan, it was aired across ten consecutive nights beginning on 7 December 2005, with the final episode aired on the evening of 16 December 2005.

James P. Tucker, Jr., also known as Big Jim Tucker, was an American journalist and author of Jim Tucker's Bilderberg Diary who began to focus on the Bilderberg Group in 1975.

<i>Once More, with Feeling</i> (book) Book by Victoria Coren and Charlie Skelton

Once More, with Feeling: How We Tried to Make the Greatest Porn Film Ever is a 2003 book by Victoria Coren and Charlie Skelton. The authors, whose only experience of the pornography industry were as journalists for the Erotic Review magazine, set out to make a pornographic film which would differ from the industry's standard output. Once More, with Feeling is their account of the time they spent researching and shooting the film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2013 Bilderberg Conference</span>

The 2013 Bilderberg Conference took place June 6–9, 2013, at The Grove hotel in Watford, Hertfordshire, England. It was the first Bilderberg Group conference to be held in the United Kingdom since the 1998 meeting in Turnberry, Scotland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bentley's Oyster Bar and Grill</span> Restaurant in London, England

Bentley's Oyster Bar and Grill is a seafood restaurant at 11-15 Swallow Street, London, which opened in 1916. The restaurant, previously known as Bentley's, has always specialised in oysters and seafood, and serves classic British dishes under the stewardship of Chef Richard Corrigan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2023 Bilderberg Conference</span> International conference in Lisbon

The 2023 Bilderberg Conference was held between May 18–21, 2023 at the Pestana Palace hotel in Lisbon, Portugal. The 2023 meeting was the 69th edition of the event. A Bilderberg Group press release stated that there were approximately 130 participants from 23 countries.

References

  1. ↑ Skelton, Charlie (13 May 2009). "Our man at Bilderberg: in pursuit of the world's most powerful cabal". The Guardian . London.
  2. ↑ Colvile, Rob (21 March 2004). "Review: Arts and Screen: All my own work". The Observer . London. Retrieved 25 January 2013.
  3. ↑ Ponsford, Dominic (10 March 2004). "Online Pair Switch to Print with London News Review". Press Gazette . London: Progressive Media International. Archived from the original on 21 April 2013. Retrieved 25 January 2013.
  4. ↑ "Clacton: Edinburgh Festival Comes to Town". Evening Gazette. Essex. 14 July 2005.
  5. ↑ "Homage to the forgotten films", BBC News, 23 January 2000.
  6. ↑ "Come on, Damien and Tracey – look at yourselves and laugh", The Guardian , 25 March 2001.
  7. ↑ Skelton, Charlie; Bainbridge, Sharon (17 March 2003). "My New Media: Charlie Skelton". The Guardian . London.
  8. ↑ Skelton, Charlie (19 December 2005). "Short cuts: Revealed – The Truth Behind the Space Cadets Lie". The Guardian . London.
  9. ↑ Adams, Guy (19 December 2005). "To Boldly Go...". The Independent (2nd ed.). London. p. 14.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.