- Comedy & Cabaret
Topics:
- Comedians
Al Murray
After studying History at Oxford and rubbing shoulders with the likes of Stewart Lee, Ben Moor and Richard Herring in the Oxford Revue, AL MURRAY wrote for Week Ending and Spitting Image, and started to work as a solo act.
He supported Frank Skinner on his world tour, taking his act (based around sound effects) with him, but soon became bored with the rigidity of his material. Fortunately, in the same year, he met Harry Hill at a Radio 4 commissioning meeting.
Pub Landlord
His break came, when he was invited to compère in Harry Hill's Edinburgh show ‘Pub Internationale’, and created the pub landlord character.
He appeared as Harry Hill's big brother Alan in The Harry Hill Show. Nominated for the Perrier more often than anyone else and after a wrangle as to whether he was 'too famous' to win it, Murray won the Perrier Award with a show based around the Pub Landlord character. This led to stage shows including And A Glass Of White Wine For The Lady, My Gaff, My Rules and Who Dares Wins. He also completed the television series Time, Gentlemen, Please.
Murray's grandfather Sir Ralph Murray was a diplomat and possibly a spy, heading the so-called Information Research Department, set up to discredit Russia. And his great-great-great-great-grandfather was William Makepeace Thackeray.
