Jeremy Hardy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jeremy Hardy

Jeremy Hardy (born 17 July 1961) is an English alternative comedian.

Born in Aldershot but now living in Streatham, he is known for his socialist politics coupled with a very English delivery. He studied Modern History and Politics at the University of Southampton. Hardy started his stand-up career in the early 1980s, and won the Perrier Comedy Award in 1988 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He is best known for his radio work, particularly on The News Quiz and his long running series of comic lectures Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation. His experiences in Palestine during the Israeli army incursions of 2002 became the subject of a feature documentary Jeremy Hardy vs the Israeli Army (2003), directed by Leila Sansour. He made his television debut in the late 1980s in various comedy shows including Blackadder Goes Forth (1989), has presented a television documentary about the political background to the English Civil War and, surprisingly, presented an edition of Top of the Pops in 1996.

To BBC Radio 4 audiences, Hardy is also renowned for his incredibly off-key singing, as showcased in I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, and for his often left-wing orientated witty interpretations of current events The News Quiz. His politics do not always go down well with the sometimes conservative Radio 4 audience, however - on his last appearance on Just A Minute in 2000 he earned boos from the audience and a reprimand from fellow panellist, the former Liberal MP, Clement Freud, when he responded to the subject "Parasites" by talking about the royal family.

He used to write a regular column for The Guardian but was fired, allegedly for supporting the Socialist Alliance in his columns.

His outspoken support for the release of Danny McNamee, who was wrongly convicted in 1987 of involvement in the Irish Republican Army's Hyde Park bombing of 1982, led to accusations (which were later retracted) that he was an IRA supporter. However, Jeremy Hardy has always made clear that he supported Danny McNamee (whose conviction was overturned in 1998, and who himself has consistently denied any sympathy for the IRA) as the victim of a miscarriage of justice. Similarly he also supported the Irish nationalist Róisín McAliskey when she was wrongly accused of involvement in an IRA mortar attack, and raised the money to free her on bail by remortgaging his house.

He was married to American-born actress and comedienne Kit Hollerbach, who featured alongside him in the radio sitcoms Unnatural Acts [1] and At Home with the Hardys [2] They are now separated.

In an edition of Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation on BBC Radio 4, entitled "How to be Afraid", broadcast on 9 September 2004, Hardy suggested that "BNP members should be shot in the back of the head", sparking complaints and causing Burnley council to cancel a show scheduled on their premises due to fears that it could be disruptive in a town that has a recent history of racial tension [3][4][5].

He was a close friend of fellow socialist comedian Linda Smith, and publicly eulogised her in many media when she died of ovarian cancer on 27 February 2006. Hardy wrote her obituary in The Guardian.[6] [7]