| Pippa Evans | |
|---|---|
 Evans in 2017 | |
| Born | June 1982 (age 42) Ealing Broadway, London |
| Medium | theatre, radio |
| Nationality | British |
| Genres | Sketch comedy, improv |
| Notable works and roles | Showstopper! The Improvised Musical Fast and Loose |
Pippa Evans (born June 1982) [2] is a British comedian, known for her work in character and improvisational comedy.
Evans attended Notting Hill and Ealing High School, an independent school for girls, where she was head girl. [3] She studied Drama and Theatre Arts at Birmingham University. [4]
After leaving university she became a member of Scratch improvisation comedy troupe, and appeared in Newsrevue, a topical comedy show at London's Canal Cafe Theatre. In 2008, she gained second place in the annual Hackney Empire New Act of the Year competition. [4]
In her solo debut at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe with Pippa Evans and Other Lonely People, she played a number of different characters at a self-help group meeting. Evans received positive reviews from the press, with The Scotsman describing her as "wicked and dark, with few gimmicks". [5] She was nominated for Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards, before performing the show at London's Soho Theatre for a limited season.
Evans's best known stage character is Loretta Maine, a disturbed American singer-songwriter described by The Guardian newspaper as "Dolly Parton seen through the lens of Mike Leigh". [6] In 2009 she performed on the BBC Radio 4 series Arthur Smith's Balham Bash as Loretta Maine. [7]
She returned to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2009 with another show titled Pippa Evans: Your Evening's Entertainment, a variety show for an imagined audience of conference delegates where Evans plays all the characters. In an interview with The Scotsman, Evans revealed "I was brought up with old time music halls and doing pantos in church halls... it was a big part of my background that always appealed to me". [8] The show was again warmly received but it was the character of Loretta Maine which critics highlighted . [9] [10] [11] In November 2009 she curated and hosted Pippa's Old Time New Time Music Hall at the Canal Cafe Theatre, introducing audiences to her contemporaries Angelos Epithemiou, the Penny Dreadfuls and Wilfredo in a satire on the tradition of music hall. [12]
In 2010 she presented an entire show at the Fringe as Maine in I'm Not Drunk, I Just Need To Talk To You. The Independent's critic observed "Maine belongs to a recognizable stable of bitter songstresses and swigs on a screw-topped bottle of wine, while spewing out her vitriol any which way". [13] [14]
Evans is a core member of the improv team behind the stage show Showstopper! The Improvised Musical . With the cast of Showstopper, Evans has toured the UK and abroad. In February 2011 the show opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in London's West End, coinciding with the broadcast of a series for BBC Radio Four.
She was a series regular on the BBC Two television improv show Fast and Loose which aired in January 2011. [15]
She was also a regular in Newsjack in October 2011 on BBC Radio 7 (now BBC Radio 4 Extra) and has made guest appearances on the Radio 4 satire series The Now Show .
On 1 December 2012, as Loretta Maine, she released the song Happy Goddamn Christmas (feat. Matt Roper) which peaked at No. 6 on the iTunes UK Comedy Charts. [16] An accompanying video was released on 13 December, featuring cameos by Arthur Smith, Imran Yusuf, Ruth Bratt and Thom Tuck, via BBC Three. [17]
In 2013, Evans co-founded The Sunday Assembly, a monthly gathering for the non-religious. [18] [19]
In 2015, Evans appeared as a panelist in two episodes of the CBBC panel show The Dog Ate My Homework and since 2016 she has made frequent appearances on the long-running radio comedy I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue (including a recording at the Royal Albert Hall for the programme's 50th anniversary in 2022 [20] ).
Richard Keith Herring is an English stand-up comedian and writer whose early work includes the comedy double act Lee and Herring. He is described by The British Theatre Guide as "one of the leading hidden masters of modern British comedy".
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world's largest performance arts festival, which in 2024 spanned 25 days and featured more than 51,446 scheduled performances of 3,317 different shows across 262 venues from 58 different countries. Of those shows, the largest section was comedy, representing almost 40% of shows, followed by theatre, which was 26.6% of shows.
Brian Arthur John Smith is an English alternative comedian, presenter and writer.
Miles Hugh Barrett Jupp is an English actor 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 also played John Duggan in The Thick of It, Nigel in the sitcom Rev and appeared on many comedy panel shows. Between 2015 and 2019, Jupp was the host of The News Quiz on BBC Radio 4, replacing Sandi Toksvig.
Stephen Kehinde Amos is a British comedian and television personality. A regular on the international comedy circuit, he is known for including his audience members during his shows. He began his career as a compere at the Big Fish comedy clubs in South London, and has been nominated for Chortle's Best Compere Award three times in 2004, 2007 and 2008.
Shaparak Khorsandi, who previously performed as Shappi Khorsandi, is an Iranian-born British comedian and author. She is the daughter of the Iranian political satirist and poet Hadi Khorsandi. Her family left Iran for the United Kingdom following the 1979 revolution, and her Iranian heritage and reactions to it are frequently referenced in her stand-up comedy performances. Khorsandi rose to national prominence after her 2006 Edinburgh Festival Fringe show Asylum Speaker and her appearance at the Secret Policeman's Ball two years later. She has featured on numerous British television and radio programmes, including the BBC Radio 4 programme Shappi Talk, and I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! in 2017.
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Matt Roper is a British comedian, writer and musician.
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Colin Hoult is an English actor and writer in television, radio, and theatre. He studied at Manchester Metropolitan School of Theatre.
Arthur Smith's Balham Bash was a comedy and music show hosted by Arthur Smith. It is recorded at his own house in Balham, London, and features both stand-up comedy and musical acts. Three series were broadcast on BBC Radio 4 from 2009 to 2011. Other than Smith, the only other regular on the show was Pippa Evans, performing as singer-songwriter Loretta Maine.
Daniel Sloss is a Scottish comedian, actor, and writer.
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.
Ruth Bratt is an English actress and comedian. Bratt has appeared in the BAFTA award winning BBC2 series People Just Do Nothing. In 2022 she was at the Edinburgh Festival in "Starship Improvise" with the Mischief Theatre.
Wilfredo is a fictional comedy character, created and portrayed by the British comedian Matt Roper.
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Austentatious (An Improvised Jane Austen Novel) is a long-form improvised comedy show, in the style of a Jane Austen novel, where each show is improvised by a six-strong cast, based on a title suggested by a member of the audience. Beginning in 2011 in London, the original cast members took the show to the Edinburgh Festival Free Fringe in the summer of 2012. Following their initial success, they began performing a monthly show in London, transferring to the West End in 2017, and have since performed on BBC Radio 4, on tour, and at the Edinburgh Fringe.
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