Josh Widdicombe

Joshua "Josh" Widdicombe (/ˈwɪdɪkəm/; born 18 April 1983) is an English comedian and radio host.

Early life and education

Widdicombe was born in Devon and grew up there. He then attended South Dartmoor Community College and later studied linguistics at the University of Manchester.^[1]

Widdicombe's brother Henry is now a comedy promoter and one of the founders of the Machynlleth Comedy Festival.^[2]

Career

Widdicombe began performing live in 2008, and made it to the final of "So You Think You're Funny" at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival during the same year. He has performed at the Fringe Festival every year since, co-writing and performing in the sketch show Superclump in 2009. He also made appearances with James Acaster and Nick Helm.^[3] At the 2011 Fringe Festival, Widdicombe performed his debut solo show "If This Show Saves One Life...", and was subsequently nominated for Best Newcomer by the Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Awards^[4] and for the Malcolm Hardee "Act Most Likely to Win a Million Quid" Award.^[5]

In 2010, Widdicombe contributed to 'Dora the Explorer' magazine, including by writing a poem for one issue.^[6]

Widdicombe has performed on radio on BBC Radio 4's Arthur Smith's Balham Bash and Absolute Radio's The Frank Skinner Show, written for comedy panel shows Mock the Week, 8 Out of 10 Cats and BBC Radio 4's Look Away Now, and supported stand-up comedians Russell Howard, Michael McIntyre, Alan Carr, Stephen Merchant and Shappi Khorsandi on their respective live tours.

In 2012, Widdicombe became a regular on Stand Up for the Week and in July he made his debut appearance on Mock the Week. He was also a main contributor to Channel 4's daily alternative review of each day's events at the London 2012 Summer Paralympics, The Last Leg with Adam Hills, alongside Adam Hills and Alex Brooker.^[7] He also appeared on The Last Leg of the Year, the end of year special of the show. In September 2012, Widdicombe appeared on The Million Pound Drop Live with The Last Leg co-host Brooker. The pair won £100,000 for their selected charities.^[8] His chosen charity was Scope. He has pectus excavatum, which he discovered after mentioning it to Christian Jessen on an episode of 8 Out of 10 Cats, and asthma.

In 2013, Widdicombe was again a regular on The Last Leg, after Channel 4 renewed the show for nine further episodes,^[9] beginning on 25 January 2013. A third series started on 31 July 2013, a fourth on 31 January 2014 and a fifth on 1 August 2014. In May 2013 Widdicombe was a guest on the second series of Dara Ó Briain: School of Hard Sums with Marcus Brigstocke. Following this, he featured as a comedian on The Apprentice spin-off show, The Apprentice: You're Fired!. In June 2013 he again appeared as a panellist on Mock the Week, featuring on several episodes of the show's 12th series. In 2014 Widdicombe appeared again on Mock the Week and on QI and also made his debut on Have I Got News for You. Widdicombe won Celebrity Mastermind broadcast 31 December 2013 with a score of 24, on the specialist subject of Blur. His chosen charity was The Lily Foundation.

Widdicombe currently hosts a weekly radio show on XFM, which broadcasts Sunday 10am-1pm. The show regularly features contributions from comedian James Acaster. The podcast of the show was named "iTunes Best New Audio Podcast" in 2013.^[10]

On 1 July 2014, the BBC announced Widdicombe would be joining its Radio 5 Live team from August 2014 as the new host of Fighting Talk along with Georgie Thompson.^[11]

References

External links

• Official website
• Josh Widdicombe at the Internet Movie Database
• What's On Wales interview