Niall Ashdown

Last updated

Niall Ashdown is an English comedian, actor, improvisor and writer.

He has previously improvised in such television shows as Lifegame, Animo, Improbable Tales at the Nottingham Playhouse, Impropera and with the Comedy Store Players. He has written and performed two acclaimed solo shows, Hungarian Bird Festival and The Man Who Would Be Sting and is in Note to Tale, a work with the improvising classical quintet Between the Notes. He is also part of Impropera - a group who improvise operas based on suggestions from the audience [1] - they are currently developing a show for a younger audience. Ashdown was the creator of the 'Robbo' Robson character who blogged on the BBC Sport website for nine years, finishing in 2010, although the Robbo blog is still alive and well, along with the odd podcast. [2]

Ashdown has also appeared in Chambers, Swiss Toni, Outnumbered and, as writer/performer, Barking and Confessions.

Ashdown was in the original British version of Whose Line is it Anyway?, appearing in Series 7 episode 1 and 11 and episodes 5, 9 and 13 of Series 8.

His radio work includes that he has co-written and was included in two series of Losers[ citation needed ] for BBC Radio 4 and in the radio play, Tunnel Vision, [3] and has previously written poetry for Radio 3's The Verb. He is also Wilf and Ruby's Dad. He is also the voice of Match of the Day's Thunderbird puppet Alan Hansen.

Ashdown played Henry Purcell in Clare Norburn’s Burying The Dead at the Brighton Early Music Festival. [4] He starred in Kneehigh Theatre's production of Ubu! A Singalong Satire, inspired by Ubu Roi . [5] [6]

Partner: Rebecca Armstrong.

Related Research Articles

Chris Morris (satirist)

Christopher J Morris is an English actor, comedian, and filmmaker. Known for his deadpan, dark humour, surrealism, and controversial subject matter, he has been praised by the British Film Institute for his "uncompromising, moralistic drive".

Alan Partridge British comedy character

Alan Gordon Partridge is a comedy character portrayed by the English actor Steve Coogan. A parody of British television personalities, Partridge is a tasteless and inept right-wing broadcaster whose inflated sense of celebrity drives him to treachery and shameless self-promotion. Since his debut in 1991, he has appeared in media including radio and television series, books, and a feature film.

Adam Buxton English actor and comedian

Adam Offord Buxton is an English actor, comedian, podcaster and writer. With the filmmaker Joe Cornish, he is part of the comedy duo Adam and Joe. They presented the Channel 4 television series The Adam and Joe Show (1996–2001) and the BBC Radio 6 Music series Adam and Joe.

Steve Coogan English actor and comedian

Stephen John Coogan is an English actor, comedian, producer and screenwriter. He began his career in the 1980s as a voice actor on the satirical puppet show Spitting Image and providing voice-overs for television advertisements. In the 1990s, he began creating original characters. In 1999, he co-founded the production company Baby Cow Productions with Henry Normal.

Armando Iannucci British comedian, film director and producer

Armando Giovanni Iannucci is a Scottish satirist, writer, director, producer, performer, and panellist. Born in Glasgow to Italian parents, Iannucci studied at the University of Glasgow followed by the University of Oxford. Starting on BBC Scotland and BBC Radio 4, his early work with Chris Morris on the radio series On the Hour transferred to television as The Day Today. A character from this series, Alan Partridge, co-created by Iannucci, went on to feature in a number of Iannucci's television and radio programmes, including Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge and I'm Alan Partridge. Iannucci also fronted the satirical Armistice review shows and in 2001 created his most personal work, The Armando Iannucci Shows, for Channel 4.

Annette Badland English actress

Annette Badland is an English actress known for a wide range of roles on television, radio, stage, and film. She is best known for her roles as Margaret Blaine in the BBC science fiction series Doctor Who, Mrs. Glenna Fitzgibbons in the first season of Outlander, and Babe Smith in the BBC soap opera EastEnders. She was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in 1993 for her performance in Jim Cartwright's play The Rise and Fall of Little Voice.

Katy Jane Carmichael is an English actress, director and producer. She is most known for her roles Twist Morgan in the Channel 4 sitcom Spaced, Lucy Barlow in the ITV soap Coronation Street, and Melissa Ryan in Waterloo Road. As a director-producer, her work includes the award-winning Mayday Mayday.

Tobias Menzies English actor

Tobias Simpson Menzies is an English stage, television and film actor. He is best known for playing Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh in the third and fourth seasons of Netflix's series The Crown, for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series and received Golden Globe and British Academy Television Award nominations. Menzies also played Frank and Jonathan "Black Jack" Randall in STARZ's Outlander, for which he received a Golden Globe Award nomination, in addition to his roles as Brutus in HBO's Rome and Edmure Tully in HBO's Game of Thrones.

Charlie Pickering Australian comedian and presenter

Charlie Pickering is an Australian comedian, television and radio presenter, author and producer. Currently, he hosts The Weekly with Charlie Pickering, a weekly news satire television show on the ABC, as well as its yearly spin-off special The Yearly with Charlie Pickering.

Miles Jupp British actor and comedian

Miles Hugh Barrett Jupp is an English actor, singer and comedian. He began his career as a stand-up comedian before playing the role of the inventor Archie in the children's television series Balamory. He has also appeared on comedy panel shows, and played John Duggan in The Thick of It and Nigel in the sitcom Rev. In September 2015, Jupp replaced Sandi Toksvig as the host of The News Quiz on BBC Radio 4.

Charles Matthew Egerton Hazlewood is a British conductor. After winning the European Broadcasting Union conducting competition in 1995 whilst still in his twenties, Hazlewood has had a career as an international conductor, music director of film and theatre, composer and a curator of music on British radio and television, Motivational Speaker and founder of Paraorchestra – the world's first integrated ensemble of disabled and non-disabled musicians. He was a guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs in May 2019 and became Sky Arts' Ambassador for Music in January 2021.

Showstopper! The Improvised Musical is an improvised comedy, musical theatre show founded in London in 2008. It has toured the UK extensively, usually sells out at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe every year, had its own BBC Radio 4 series in 2011 and performed a 10-week run in London's West End in 2015, for which it won an Olivier Award.

Adam Kay (writer) British comedy writer, author, comedian and former doctor

Adam Richard Kay is a British comedy writer, author, comedian and former doctor. His television writing credits include Crims, Mrs. Brown's Boys and Mitchell and Webb. He is best known as author of the number-one bestselling book This Is Going to Hurt.

Luisa Omielan is a British comedian based in Birmingham.

Jane Postlethwaite English actress

Jane Postlethwaite is an English comedian, writer and actor. She is originally from Cumbria, England.

The Pin (comedy act) Comedy double-act composed of Ben Ashenden and Alex Owen

The Pin is a comedy double-act composed of Ben Ashenden and Alex Owen. They wrote and starred in a BBC Radio 4 show of the same name from 2015 to 2019.

Kiri Louise Pritchard-McLean is a Welsh comedian and writer. She has performed for several consecutive years at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and won five Chortle Awards.

Laura Cannell British composer and musician

Laura Cannell is a British composer and improvising recorder player and violinist. Her work is known for combining the influences of early music, folk and experimental music. Her debut solo album Quick Sparrows over the Black Earth (2014), was named as a top album of 2014 by The Wire magazine and her album Reckonings was named in the best albums and tracks of 2018 in The Guardian. Cannell's music has been frequently broadcast on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 6Music, NTS Radio and internationally.

Alice Birch is a British playwright and screenwriter. Birch has written several plays, including Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. for which she was awarded the George Devine Award for Most Promising New Playwright, and Anatomy of a Suicide for which she won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Birch was also the screenwriter for the film Lady Macbeth and has written for such television shows as Succession and Normal People.

Danny Robins is an English comedy writer and performer, broadcaster and journalist.

References

  1. Logan, Brian (23 December 2008). "Comedy review: Impropera / Leicester Square theatre, London". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 16 March 2020.
  2. "BBC - Sport Editors: From Swindon Town to Cape Town". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 16 March 2020.
  3. "BBC Radio 4 Extra - Niall Ashdown - Tunnel Vision". BBC. Retrieved 16 March 2020.
  4. Hewitt, Phil (5 November 2019). "Burying The Dead at Brighton Early Music Festival - review". www.midsussextimes.co.uk. Retrieved 15 March 2020.
  5. Wyver, Kate (13 December 2019). "Kneehigh's Ubu! A Singalong Satire review – karaoke hell". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 15 March 2020.
  6. BWW News Desk. "Full Tour Dates Announced For Kneehigh's UBU! A SINGALONG SATIRE". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved 15 March 2020.