 |
Dean Wilkinson | |
|---|---|
| Born | Dean Earle Wilkinson 18 April 1967 Guisborough, North Riding of Yorkshire, England |
| Education | Bassleton Secondary School (now Thornaby Academy) |
| Occupation(s) | Writer, performer |
| Years active | 1989–present |
| Height | 6 ft 0 in (1.82 m) |
| Website | https://www.deanwilkinson.net/ |
Dean Earle Wilkinson (born 18 April 1967) is an English comedy writer. He wrote the multi-award-winning SMTV Live and Chums for Ant & Dec, [1] and scripted the Sony console game series LittleBigPlanet. [2]
Dean Earle Wilkinson was born in Guisborough.
Wilkinson began writing in 1989 for adult and children’s comics including Smut and Zit. He was appointed editor of the anarchic children’s comic Acne before releasing his own titled Fizog. His first TV scripts were performed by Charlie Chuck (Uncle Peter from The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer ) on The James Whale Show.
Other breaks came on The Brian Conley Show , Six Pairs Of Pants and We Know Where you Live.
In 1997 Wilkinson provided many sketches for the penultimate series of Alas Smith & Jones . Greater success came when Chris Pilkington, then of Children’s BBC, paired him with the Geordie pop duo P.J. & Duncan, later more widely known as Ant and Dec, with whom he worked for 7 years.
Wilkinson wrote The Ant & Dec Show, Ant & Dec Unzipped and several TV specials for the duo. The biggest success was the Saturday morning show SMTV Live which featured the sitcom Chums.
Wilkinson quit the show not long after Ant and Dec left to work for the BBC. Whilst working for the BBC he wrote 2 series of his sitcom Bad Penny starring John Shuttleworth actor Graham Fellows, and two series of his sketch show Stupid! , starring Marcus Bridgstock and Phil Cornwell. Wilkinson co-created and co-wrote the radio 4 show John Shuttleworth’s Open Mind. In 2006 the BBC commissioned to write his radio sketch show I'm an Alien Beam Me Off Here starring Blake's 7 star Paul Darrow.
Wilkinson co-wrote Harry Hill's Shark Infested Custard with Harry Hill in 2005.
Other TV work has seen him writing for BBC pre-school channel CBeebies's forthcoming Teacup Travels and Doodle Do as well as Casper’s Scare School, Aardman’s Planet Sketch, links for Noel Edmonds on Are You Smarter than a 10 Year Old? and all 26 episodes of the Malaysian action comedy animation series Jinggo, produced by Backbone Entertainment.
Wilkinson has had much success writing for games and is the writer on all Sony’s LittleBigPlanet [3] titles. He has also written for two of Team 17’s Worms games, Worms Revolution which featured the voice of Matt Berry as Don Keystone [4] and Worms Clan Wars with the voice of Katherine Parkinson as Tara Pinkle; both Berry and Parkinson can be seen in TV's The IT Crowd . Other games such as Driver: San Francisco , Trivial Pursuit, Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and Disney’s Fantasia: Music Evolved are also brought to life thanks to Dean's dialogue.
For LittleBigPlanet 3, Dean Wilkinson returned as one of the writers, providing witticisms and puns for Stephen Fry. He also wrote the new villain’s dialogue, voiced by Hugh Laurie. In addition, Dean worked on general dialogue, quests, character names and bios, Popit puzzles, and general consistency in the LittleBigPlanet tone. [5]
Dean Wilkinson also wrote for and worked with Monty Python star John Cleese on the Sony brain training game Smart As . [6]
In 2003 Scholastic published his first two novels, The Legend of Arthur King [7] and Arthur King and the Curious Case of the Time Train. [8]
For Penguin he has written the Plants Versus Zombies puzzle book and The Beano’s Prankipedia.
He also wrote the SMTV Live annual and has self-published Sarkylocks & The Three Bears and The Greenies.
For adults he has published The Tees Bally Fibber, the best of the spoof newspaper website he used to write and performed stories from on Teesside’s TFM Radio, and the darkly humoured Disturbing Bedtime Tales For Very Bad People.
For Apex Publishing he wrote The Classic Children’s Television Quiz Book, [9] a thousand questions on classic children’s TV.
MX Publishing publish his supernatural kid's comedy book series Sheerluck Versus The Paranormal. [10]
Wilkinson writes more grown up comedy books, such as Swearlot Holmes, under the name Earle Wilkinson.
Wilkinson has designed the upcoming board game The Madcap League, [11] based on his own comedy intellectual property and a Sherlock Holmes Monopoly game, commissioned by the Sherlock Holmes Museum, Baker Street, London.
Dean lives with his long term girlfriend Joanne Kitching. He has 3 daughters to a previous marriage; Emily Wilkinson, Alice Wilkinson and Grace Wilkinson.
Fawlty Towers is a British television sitcom written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, originally broadcast on BBC Two in 1975 and 1979. Two series of six episodes each were made. The show was ranked first on a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000 and, in 2019, it was named the greatest ever British TV sitcom by a panel of comedy experts compiled by the Radio Times.
John Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, producer, and presenter. Emerging from the Cambridge Footlights in the 1960s, he first achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report. In the late 1960s, he cofounded Monty Python, the comedy troupe responsible for the sketch show Monty Python's Flying Circus. Along with his Python costars Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Graham Chapman, Cleese starred in Monty Python films, which include Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Life of Brian (1979), and The Meaning of Life (1983).
Monty Python were a British comedy troupe formed in 1969 consisting of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. The group came to prominence for the sketch comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus, which aired on the BBC from 1969 to 1974. Their work then developed into a larger collection that included live shows, films, albums, books, and musicals; their influence on comedy has been compared to the Beatles' influence on music. Their sketch show has been called "an important moment in the evolution of television comedy".
Martin Alan Feldman was a British actor, comedian and comedy writer. He was known for his prominent, misaligned eyes.
Timothy Julian Brooke-Taylor OBE was an English comedian and actor, best known as a member of The Goodies.
Steve Brown is a British composer, lyricist, record producer, and arranger.
Anthony David McPartlin is an English television presenter, former singer, rapper and actor. He is best known for working alongside Dec Donnelly as part of the presenting duo Ant & Dec.
Ant & Dec are a British television presenting duo consisting of Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly from Newcastle upon Tyne. Formed after their meeting as child actors on CBBC's drama Byker Grove, they performed together as pop musicians PJ & Duncan, the names of their characters from the series. For their earliest TV presenting roles they used the aliases Tony & Lan.
Declan Joseph Oliver Donnelly is a British television presenter, television producer, former singer, rapper, comedian and actor from Newcastle upon Tyne, England. He is best known for working alongside Ant McPartlin as part of the presenting duo Ant & Dec.
The National Comedy Awards is an annual awards ceremony in the United Kingdom, celebrating notable comedians and entertainment performances of the previous year.
Catherine Elizabeth Deeley is an English television presenter and actress. She began her career as a co-presenter of the ITV children's show SMTV Live (1998–2002), for which she won a BAFTA Children's Award, and its spin-off chart show CD:UK (1998–2005). In 2003, Deeley co-presented the talent competition show Fame Academy on BBC One alongside Patrick Kielty, and became the presenter of the ITV talent show Stars in Their Eyes,.
Veronica "Ronni" Jane Ancona is a British actress, comedian, impressionist and writer best known for The Big Impression, which she co-wrote and starred in and was, for four years, one of BBC One's top-rated comedy programmes, winning numerous awards, including a BAFTA in 2003. Ancona also starred in the first series of the BAFTA-winning ITV series The Sketch Show. Ancona has appeared in the BAFTA-winning Last Tango in Halifax since its creation in 2012. She is a co-director, alongside Sally Phillips and Nick Hamson, of the production company Captain Dolly.
Stephen James Merchant is an English comedian, actor, director, and writer. Alongside Ricky Gervais, Merchant was the co-writer and co-director of the British TV comedy series The Office (2001–2003), and co-writer, co-director, and co-star of both Extras (2005–2007) and Life's Too Short (2011–2013). With Gervais and Karl Pilkington, he hosted The Ricky Gervais Show in its radio, podcast, audiobook, and television formats; the radio version won a bronze Sony Award. He also provided the voice of the robotic "Intelligence Dampening Sphere" Wheatley in the 2011 video game Portal 2. Merchant co-developed the Sky One travel documentary series An Idiot Abroad (2010–2012) and co-created Lip Sync Battle (2015–present).
Mitchell and Webb are a British comedy double act composed of David Mitchell and Robert Webb. They are best known for starring in the Channel 4 sitcom Peep Show and their radio and TV sketch shows That Mitchell and Webb Sound and That Mitchell and Webb Look. The duo first met at the Footlights in 1993 and collaborated on the 1995 revue while at Cambridge.
Brian Paul Conley is an English actor, comedian, singer and television presenter. Conley has been the host of The Brian Conley Show, as well as presenting the Royal Variety Performance on eight occasions. In his 40-year television career, he has starred in multiple award-winning television sitcoms including Time After Time and The Grimleys. In the West End, he has played the lead role in musicals such as Me and My Girl, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Hairspray, Oliver!, The Music Man, Barnum and Jolson for which he was nominated for a prestigious Laurence Olivier Award. As a musician, he has released five albums, including Brian Conley Sings, Let the Good Times Roll, and Stage to Stage. He has won numerous awards in his career including The National Television Award for Most Popular Comedy Performer, Best Live Performer in Manchester Evening News and a British Comedy Award.
SMTV Live was a British Saturday morning children's television programme, produced by Blaze Television for ITV. Operating on a similar format to other Saturday morning programmes for children, such as BBC's Live & Kicking, the programme premiered on 29 August 1998 and ran for over 270 episodes across five years, before its conclusion on 27 December 2003.
Stephen Daniel Mulhern is an English television presenter, magician and comedian. He began his career at CITV presenting the children’s television shows Finger Tips (2001–2004) and Tricky TV (2005–2010). Mulhern has presented various television shows for ITV, including Britain's Got More Talent (2007–2019), Animals Do the Funniest Things (2007–2011), This Morning's Hub (2011–2014), Catchphrase (2013–present), Big Star's Little Star (2013–2018), In for a Penny (2019–present), Rolling In It (2020–2021), Deal or No Deal (2023–present) and Dancing on Ice (2024–present).
Slap Bang with Ant & Dec was a short lived television programme that was shown in the United Kingdom on ITV in 2001.
Thaila Lucia Zucchi is a British singer and actress of English and Italian descent. She began her career as a member of the British band allSTARS* before transitioning into acting, appearing in Big Brother 8 in the UK, where she played the part of fake Australian housemate Pauline. She has also appeared in Balls of Steel and Star Stories, as well as the TV series Blandings.
The Kevin Bishop Show is a sketch comedy written by and starring English comedian Kevin Bishop, part of the Star Stories team. The show was commissioned by Channel 4 for a six-part series starting on 25 July 2008 at 10 p.m. A pilot was broadcast on 23 November 2007 as part of Channel 4's Comedy Showcase and the programme soon earned interest for its incredibly fast pace; 42 sketches were shown in 23 minutes. The show was nominated for Best New Comedy at the 2008 British Comedy Awards. The show started its second series on Friday 31 July 2009 at 10 p.m. on Channel 4.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
