| Tony Hawks | |
|---|---|
| Born | Antony Gordon Hawksworth 12 May 1960 Brighton, Sussex, England |
| Other names | Tony Hawks |
| Occupation | comedian, author |
| Known for | Morris Minor and the Majors, Stutter Rap (No Sleep Til Bedtime), Playing the Moldovans at Tennis, Round Ireland with a Fridge |
| Website | |
| http://www.tony-hawks.com/ | |
Antony Gordon Hawksworth, better known as Tony Hawks, is a British comedian and author.
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Born in Brighton in 1960,[1] Hawks was educated at Brighton Hove and Sussex Grammar School (1971–76) (became Brighton Hove & Sussex Sixth Form College in 1975) and Brighton College (1976–78).[2] He stated during an appearance on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue that he briefly attended the University of Manchester.
He first attempted to break into show business as a serious singer-songwriter, but it was with a novelty record that he had his first brush with fame. As leader of the trio Morris Minor and the Majors, he reached number 4 in the UK charts with the Beastie Boys parody, Stutter Rap (No Sleep Til Bedtime) in 1988. It went on to sell 220,000 copies, and was number one in Australia. The follow-up, a pastiche of Stock Aitken Waterman called This Is the Chorus, fared less well.
A TV series followed from this, Morris Minor's Marvellous Motors, written by and starring Hawks. In it the fictional bandleader attempted to maintain his pop career while running a garage. It ran for one series in 1989.
Hawks performs stand-up comedy, and is a regular on TV and radio panel games in the UK, including I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, Just a Minute, The Unbelievable Truth and Have I Got News for You, although he first came to prominence as one of two resident performers — the other was Jo Brand — on semi-successful BBC monologue show The Brain Drain.
He has also appeared in Red Dwarf in a number of supporting roles, on several occasions as a voice artist for intelligent machines. Hawks provided the voice of a vending machine in "Future Echoes" and "Waiting for God" and the voice of a suitcase in "Stasis Leak", and appeared onscreen as The Guide in "Better Than Life", The Compere in "Backwards", and Caligula in "Meltdown". On the 29th May 2009, Tony featured in an episode of Carpool, with his Red Dwarf co-star Robert Llewellyn.
He also provided the voice-over for a restaurant ad in the episode "Me²", although this role was uncredited. In the first few seasons of "Red Dwarf," Hawks performed a warm-up act for the live audience before taping began to get them laughing. His continuous presence during the early seasons of the series led to his being nicknamed "The Fifth Dwarfer". More recently he has appeared in the television series Grumpy Old Men and a contestant on the BBC quiz show School's Out.
In November 2010 he was a guest on a number of TV and radio programmes to discuss the film version of Round Ireland with a Fridge including Simon Mayo's Radio 2 show, Loose Ends, Radio Wales and Radio Scotland. He was also a contestant on a special edition of Mastermind for Children in Need and featured as part of Comic Relief 2011.
In March 2011 Tony travelled to Japan to appear at the Okinawa International Film Festival where Round Ireland with a Fridge was nominated for Best Comedy.
In the Autumn of 2011 Tony completed his first national theatre tour for a decade, taking his one man show Random Fun to 30 towns and cities around the UK. He was also a guest on many TV and Radio shows during the tour including BBC Breakfast and The Wright Stuff.
His new feature film version of Playing the Moldovans at Tennis will be released in spring 2012.
Hawks has written five books:
Hawks has also contributed to the collection The Weekenders.
Hawks chose The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle as the book he would take with him to a desert island.[4]
The full-length feature film version of his book Round Ireland with a Fridge, starring Tony, Josie Lawrence, Ed Byrne and Sean Hughes, was released in Autumn 2010. Filming on the follow-up, Playing the Moldovans at Tennis, with Steven Frost, Angus Deayton, Morwenna Banks and Laura Solon, has just been completed.
Tony Hawks donated half of the royalties from his book Playing the Moldovans at Tennis to a trust fund for Moldova,[5] which was used to open the Hippocrates Centre, a medical centre that provides rehabilitative therapy for disabled children from socially vulnerable families. Hawks continues to support Hippocrates through fundraising and personal involvement.
Hawks is the co-founder and public face of the "Tennis for Free" campaign which aims to make Britain's existing municipal tennis facilities available to all.[6]
Hawks is currently collaborating with Chesney Hawkes on various songs available from a MySpace website.
He is frequently confused with Tony Hawk, largely because the latter's video game franchise uses the possessive apostrophe ("Tony Hawk's"). Hawks maintains a list of emails intended for the skateboarder and his mischievous responses to them[7] on his website. On 2 January 2008 he appeared on an edition of Celebrity Mastermind, with Tony Hawk as his chosen specialised subject.[8] Hawks noted that his correspondents "might be able to do backside varials but they can't spell to save their lives."[9]