Russell Howard

Russell Howard
Birth name	Russell Joseph Howard
Born	(1980-03-23) 23 March 1980 Bristol, England
Medium	Stand up, television, radio
Nationality	British
Years active	1999–present
Genres	Social satire Observational comedy Anecdotal humour Absurdist humour
Notable works and roles	The Milk Run Mock the Week Russell Howard's Good News
Website	russell-howard.co.uk

Russell Joseph Howard^[1] (born 23 March 1980^[2]) is an English comedian and presenter best known for his TV show Russell Howard's Good News and his appearances on the topical panel TV show Mock The Week. He won "Best Compère" at the 2006 Chortle Awards and was nominated for an if.comedy award for his 2006 Edinburgh Festival Fringe show.

Personal life

Howard was born to Dave and Ninette Howard and has two younger siblings, twins Kerry and Daniel.^[3] Daniel has epilepsy; a fact which Howard often references during his act. In April 2010, Howard ran the London Marathon for the first time with both his brother and sister, to raise money for Epilepsy Society. He completed the 26-mile course in 4 hours and 15 minutes, beating his target time of 5 hours. Sponsorship has raised over £7,000 to date.^[4]

Howard studied at Alton College in Hampshire, then went on to study economics at the University of the West of England in Bristol.^[5]

Howard supports Liverpool Football Club and says that he is "deadly serious" about football.^[6] "I still go down the pub and play football with my mates", he commented in 2010.^[6]

In terms of political views, Howard appeared at Friends of the Earth's LIVEstock comedy and music event at the Hammersmith Apollo in support of the green campaign group's Food Chain Campaign for planet-friendly farming, on 12 November 2009.

For Sport Relief 2010 he took part in the BT Sport Relief Million Pound Bike Ride with David Walliams, Jimmy Carr, Fearne Cotton, Miranda Hart, Patrick Kielty and Davina McCall. They cycled from John O'Groats in Scotland to Land's End in 4 days trying to raise £1 million.^[7]

Howard lives with his girlfriend Cerys in Leamington Spa.^[8]

Russell was voted Heat Magazine's "Weird Crush of the Year 2013",^[9] with his friend and former flatmate Jon Richardson coming second.

Career

TV and radio work

In 2004 he was commissioned by BBC Radio 1 to write, sing and perform on the comedy series The Milk Run. Howard has also appeared on the shows Banter (hosted by Andrew Collins) and Political Animal for BBC Radio 4.^[10]

Until 2010, Howard was a regular panellist on Mock the Week. He has also appeared on 8 Out of 10 Cats, Would I Lie To You?, Live at the Apollo, The Secret Policeman's Ball 2008, Law of the Playground and Never Mind the Buzzcocks (Series 18, Episode 2 and Series 20, Episode 4).^[11]

He was one of several comedians picked as the best comedy talent from the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe that recorded 10–15-minute spots for the 'Edinburgh and Beyond' show which was aired on Paramount Comedy 1 in the autumn of 2006.^[12] The show was filmed at The Bloomsbury Theatre. From 2009, he took over as compère of this show from Al Murray.^[13]

From November 2006 to July 2008, Russell co-hosted The Russell Howard Show^[14] on BBC 6 Music with fellow comedian Jon Richardson in a Sunday morning slot previously hosted by Russell Brand. The show continued to air, without Howard, until March 2010. He has since explained that his main reason for leaving the show was that he finds radio "really restrictive" and "I gorge off the audience as a performer, but you can't gauge a reaction on the radio."^[15][16]

Russell was commissioned to make a comedy show called Russell Howard's Good News, aimed at under-25s, for BBC Three. The first episode aired on 22 October 2009 and the show ran for seven episodes as well as a "Best Of" show and a Christmas Special. It went on to become BBC Three's highest ever rating entertainment series.^[17][18] In the show, he gave his take on the week's major news stories, as well as giving attention to some of the more light-hearted stories of the week. Two more series of the show were commissioned, with the second series starting on 25 March 2010.^[19] A seventh series began on 27 September 2012 on BBC Three. Series 8 began on 25 April 2013 on BBC Three.

Russell Howard's Good News was voted the Best Ever BBC Three show on 9 February 2013^[20] as part of BBC Three's 10th birthday celebrations.^[21]

He made his United States television début on 3 August 2011 episode of Conan.

Howard guest hosted the second episode of the 27th series of Never Mind the Buzzcocks on 30 September 2013.

Live comedy

A show from his 2007 Adventures tour was released on DVD on 17 November 2008,^[22] under the title "Russell Howard Live". The show on the DVD was recorded at The Bloomsbury Theatre.^[23]

Howard started touring for his show Dingledodies in September 2008 and played various dates through to December. Due to overwhelming demand he further extended the tour twice into 2009. It sold in excess of 125,000 tickets,^[24] including three sell-out shows at the Hammersmith Apollo as well as several large arenas such as Wembley Arena and Manchester's MEN Arena. The DVD of this tour was released on 9 November 2009^[25] and features a recording of the show from the Brighton Dome.^[24]

He was named "Best Theatre Show" at the 2009 Chortle Comedy Awards.^[26]

Howard performed 10 UK dates between 11 and 20 December 2009 for his "Big Rooms and Belly Laughs" tour.^[27]

He performed his latest arena tour in 2011, titled Right Here Right Now. The tour sold out in days and was extended twice, with new dates in December 2011 announced on 3 May 2011.

It was reported in The Independent that Howard earned £4 million in 2009 alone,^[28] which he denies.^[29]

On 23 April 2013 Howard confirmed that he would be performing a stand-up tour called Wonderbox starting in February 2014 with dates in Britain, Ireland, the United States, Australia and New Zealand.^[30]

Other Work

In 2013 Howard revealed that he is currently writing a film.^[31]

Credits

• Mock the Week – BBC Two (2006–10)
• Never Mind the Buzzcocks – BBC Two (2007), Contestant
• Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive – BBC Three (2007)
• Would I Lie To You? – BBC One (2007)
• Live at the Apollo – BBC One (2007, 2009)
• Law of the Playground – Channel 4 (2008)
• The Secret Policeman's Ball 2008 – Channel 4 (2008)
• 8 out of 10 Cats – Channel 4 (2008)
• Russell Howard's Good News – BBC Three (2009–present)
• Conan – TBS (2011)
• Children in Need 2011 – BBC One (2011)
• Jon Richardson: A Little Bit OCD – Channel 4 (2012)
• The Jonathan Ross Show – ITV (2012, 2013)
• The Big Fat Quiz of the Year – Channel 4 (2012)
• Red Nose Day 2013 – (2013)
• Never Mind the Buzzcocks – (2013), Guest Host

Radio

• The Milk Run – BBC Radio 1 (2004)
• Political Animal – BBC Radio 4 (2004)
• Banter – BBC Radio 4 (2005)
• The Russell Howard Show – BBC Radio 6 Music (2006–08)

Stand-up DVDs

References

External links

• Russell Howard Official Website