Russell Joseph Howard (born 23 March 1980, in Bath, Somerset) is an English comedian, who has won several awards for his comedic talents, notably making Zoo magazine's top 10 list of "Britain's Funniest Comics 2005" at number 2 and winning "Best Compère" at the 2006 Chortle Awards. He was also nominated for an if.comedy award for his 2006 Edinburgh Festival Fringe show, Wandering.

Early Life

Russell Joseph Howard was born on 23rd March 1980 in Bath, Somerset to David Howard and Nanette Veale. Howard has two younger siblings, Daniel and Kerry Howard.

TV, radio & live work

In 2004 he was commissioned by BBC Radio 1 to write and perform on the comedy series, The Milk Run.

He is a regular on British topical panel show Mock the Week. He has also made appearances 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).

On BBC Radio 4, he has appeared on the shows Banter, hosted by Andrew Collins, and Political Animal.

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. The show was filmed at The Bloomsbury Theatre.

From November 2006 to July 2008, Russell co-hosted The Russell Howard Show on BBC 6 Music with fellow comedian Jon Richardson in a Sunday morning slot previously hosted by Russell Brand. He has since explained that his main reason for leaving the show was that he finds radio 'really restrictive' and 'I feed off the audience as a performer, but you can't gauge a reaction on the radio.'

From 2009 he is the host of Edinburgh And Beyond on Comedy Central.

He has a DVD which came out on 17 November 2008, called "Russell Howard Live" featuring his 2007 show, Adventures".

Howard started touring his show 'Dingledodies' in September 2008 and played various dates through to December. Due to overwhelming demand Russell further extended his 'Dingledodies' tour into 2009. It has sold in excess of 100,000 tickets, including three sell out shows at the Hammersmith Apollo as well as several large arenas such as Wembley Arena and Manchester's MEN Arena. He was named "Best Theatre Show" at the 2009 Chortle Comedy Awards.

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 Thursday 22nd October 2009 and will run for eight episodes.

Russell will also be appearing live on 12 November 2009 at Friends of the Earth’s LIVEstock 2009 comedy and music event at the Hammersmith Apollo in support of the green campaign group’s Food Chain Campaign for planet-friendly farming.

Russell Howard is scheduled to perform 10 UK dates between December 11th and 20th 2009 for his "Big Rooms and Belly Laughs" tour, with performances due in Manchester (11th December 2009), Cardiff (12th December 2009), Wembley (13th December 2009), Newcastle-upon-Tyne (14th December 2009), Nottingham (15th December 2009), Liverpool (16th December 2009), Birmingham (17th December 2009), Aberdeen (18th December 2009), Sheffield (19th December 2009) and Belfast (20th December 2009).

He currently resides in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire.

References