Nishant Kumar (born 1985)[2] is a British stand-up comedian, television presenter, and podcast host. He became known as the host of satirical comedy The Mash Report, now known as Late Night Mash. He has also presented BBC Radio 4 Extra's topical comedy show Newsjack, the Comedy Central series Joel & Nish vs The World, the BBC Radio 4 programme The News Quiz and Hello America on Quibi. Since May 2023, he has been the co-host of the political podcast Pod Save the UK.
Kumar performing for an audience of children in 2014
Kumar performed with Tom Neenan as a double act, Gentlemen of Leisure, having met while students at the Durham University and performed in the Durham Revue.[10][11]
Kumar has been performing as a solo stand-up performer in shows since 2013.[12] He also held a regular guest spot on Josh Widdicombe's Radio X show between 2013 and 2015, where he presented the feature "Nishipedia".
Kumar has also taken part in a number of topical news programmes:
In February 2015, he was announced as the host for the twelfth series of the BBC Radio 4 Extra series Newsjack.[13]
He has been a regular co-host of The Bugle podcast since October 2016.[14]
His series Spotlight Tonight with Nish Kumar first aired on BBC Radio 4 in March 2017.[15]
2014: "Ruminations on the Nature of Subjectivity".[19]
2015: "Long word... Long word... Blah Blah Blah... I'm so clever"[20] at The Pleasance Theatre, which continued as a UK tour running from October to December 2015.[21] The show was nominated for an Edinburgh Comedy Award.
2016: "Actions Speak Louder Than Words, Unless You Shout the Words Real Loud", which received a number of favourable reviews.[22][23][24] A joke from the show was featured in The Daily Telegraph's list of the 37 funniest jokes from the Edinburgh Fringe.[25] This show continued as a national tour.
Nish Kumar at the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Edinburgh, Scotland.
As a live performer, Kumar has appeared at a number of festivals and events, including the Melbourne International Comedy Festival,[26] New Zealand Comedy Festival, Leicester Comedy Festival and the comedy tent at Latitude Music Festival. In 2017, he competed in series 5 of Taskmaster with Bob Mortimer, Sally Phillips, Aisling Bea and Mark Watson.[27] The same year, Kumar completed a six-part travel series for Netflix with fellow comedian Joel Dommett, titled Joel & Nish vs The World.[28] In 2018 he appeared on Netflix's Comedians of the World.[29]
In February 2019, it was announced he would be appearing in a new Sky One sport show, Comedians Watching Football With Friends.[30]
In December 2019, Kumar was booed off stage at a Christmas charity lunch event for the Lord's Taverners. The performance, for which Kumar was not paid, included political jokes on Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Theresa May and the ongoing Brexit process.[31][32] Following the event, the Lord's Taverners released a statement emphasising the apolitical nature of the organisation and expressing that they did not support the behaviour of some members of the crowd,[33] which included booing, heckling and the throwing of a bread roll.[34] In response to the event, Kumar told The Guardian: "I'm sort of amazed by how fascinated people are by the whole thing. It's not the first time I've been booed off stage [...] I consider it the life of being a comedian – they have a right to boo me."[35]
Kumar hosted the Quibi topical comedy series Hello America, which ran from August 2020 until the channel's closure in December that year.[36][37][38][39][40]
Kumar hosted the topical BBC comedy show The Mash Report from its launch in 2017 to its cancellation in 2021.[41] It was speculated that the series was dropped due to its perceived left-leaning political position, although the BBC made no official statement on this.[42] Kumar expressed frustration over the lack of clarity, saying "They need to make a definitive statement that it was not a political decision. Because what precedent does that set otherwise?"[42] Rights to the show were picked up by the television channel Dave, who began broadcasting new episodes as Late Night Mash, with Kumar and the main cast returning, in September 2021. In October 2021, Kumar revealed that he was stepping down from Mash after five seasons, four on the BBC and one on Dave, to "spend more time with [his] emotional problems."[43]
Kumar is in a relationship with fellow comedian Amy Annette, whom he met in 2010.[45][46][9][47] He was raised, and still identifies, as a Hindu.[48]
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The News Quiz is a British topical panel game broadcast on BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in 1977. The show, created by John Lloyd from an idea by Nicholas Parsons, has seen several hosts, including Barry Norman, Barry Took, Simon Hoggart, Sandi Toksvig, and Miles Jupp. Andy Zaltzman was announced as the permanent host after series 103. The show involves four panellists, often comedians or journalists, who answer questions about events of the previous week, often leading to humorous and satirical exchanges. The show was adapted for television in 1981 and has also inspired other shows.
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The Bugle is a satirical news podcast, created by John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman in 2007. It is currently hosted by Zaltzman and a rotating cast of co-hosts including Alice Fraser, Nish Kumar, Anuvab Pal, Hari Kondabolu, Tom Ballard, Tiff Stevenson and Helen Zaltzman. It focuses on global news stories, especially about politics in the United Kingdom, United States, and India.
Newsjack was a British satirical sketch show which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra between 2009 and 2021. It was hosted by Miles Jupp, Justin Edwards, Romesh Ranganathan (2014), Nish Kumar (2015–2016), Angela Barnes (2017–2018) and Kiri Pritchard-McLean (2019–2021). It was first broadcast on 4 June 2009. The series was notable for having an "Open door" policy on writing, advertising itself as "the scrapbook sketch show written entirely by the Great British public" meaning that unsolicited writers without contract to the BBC could send in material. The show was designed to give new writers an opportunity to get material broadcast. It was hoped by the people behind the show that it would be a modern version of Week Ending, an earlier sketch show which also accepted material the same way. Most shows were recorded in front of a live audience at the BBC Radio Theatre in Broadcasting House.
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Rachel Sarah Parris is an English comedian, musician, actress and presenter. She hosts the satirical news show Late Night Mash.
The Mash Report is a British satirical comedy show originally broadcast on BBC Two and hosted by Nish Kumar. It features an array of comedians satirising the week's news. The show later continued on Dave as Late Night Mash, hosted by Kumar and then by Rachel Parris. It was cancelled in 2023.
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