Russell Howard

Early life

Howard was born to Dave and Ninette Howard. He has two younger siblings, twins Kerry and Daniel (born 1982). Daniel has epilepsy, to which Howard sometimes refers during his act.

Howard attended Perins School in New Alresford and Alton College, both in Hampshire. He later studied economics at the University of the West of England in Bristol.

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.

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).

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 2009, he took over as compère of this show from Al Murray.

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. 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."

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. 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. A seventh series began on 27 September 2012 on BBC Three. Series 8 began on 25 April 2013 on BBC Three, and series 9 started broadcast in its new home on BBC Two in October 2014.

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

Howard made his United States television debut on the 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.

In November 2013 Howard made a surprise appearance in the North East market town Barnard Castle to preview his latest tour show, Wonderbox.

From 2015 to 2016, Howard presented a show called Russell Howard's Stand Up Central which broadcasts on Comedy Central. However in 2017 due to tour commitments, Howard was unable to present the show's third series and was replaced by Chris Ramsey. In 2015 he appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon where he performed some stand-up.

In December 2015, Howard made his acting debut in BBC Two's hour-long comedy-drama A Gert Lush Christmas, which he also co-wrote. In the film, Howard played Dan Colman, who takes his girlfriend to meet his family in Bristol for Christmas. The film also co-starred Howard's sister Kerry, who played Dan's sister Julie.

On 10 March 2016, Howard appeared on the BBC 1 panel show Room 101. In September 2016 the BBC Trust rejected Philip Davies' complaint against Howard, who had criticised Davies for "talking out" bills, and called him an "arsehole", "windbag", "wanker" and a "toad-faced hypocrite". The BBC Trust found that "robust criticism" was legitimate in political satire.

Starting in October 2016, Howard presented a travel documentary series for Comedy Central called Russell Howard & Mum: USA Road Trip which involved him and his mother Ninette travelling through America.

On 29 November 2016, it was announced that Howard would write and star in a 14-part weekly comedy series entitled The Russell Howard Hour on Sky 1 in 2017, as part of a two-year deal with Sky. The series began on 21 September 2017.

Live comedy

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

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, 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 and features a recording of the show from the Brighton Dome.

Howard was named "Best Theatre Show" at the 2009 Chortle Comedy Awards. Howard appeared in UK dates in December 2009 for his "Big Rooms and Belly Laughs" tour. Right Here Right Now, his 2011 arena tour, sold out.

The Independent reported that Howard earned £4 million in 2009 alone, which he denies.

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. The tour was released on DVD in November 2014. This was further extended to include more UK dates in December 2014.

In November 2015, Howard announced that he would be doing a fifth stand-up tour in February to July 2017 called Round The World where he will tour the United Kingdom, Ireland, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and America. In advance of the tour, Howard plans to memorise the capital city of every country in the world alphabetically, in order to recite the full list at the start of each performance.

Personal life

Howard lives with his girlfriend Cerys, a medical doctor, in Camden, London, and their dog, a Jack Russell Terrier named Archie.

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.

Since he was ten, Howard has supported Liverpool Football Club. He has said that he is "deadly serious" about football. "I still go down the pub and play football with my mates", he commented in 2010. He played for Conference South team Basingstoke Town F.C. before becoming a comedian.

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.

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.

In November 2011 whilst filming a Mystery Guest segment for Good News, Howard broke his left hand when attempting to do press ups on a stunt chair.

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

Howard mentioned on the DVD recording of his 2014 tour Wonderbox that he is an atheist.

On 1 March 2015, Howard took part in The Bath Half Marathon and completed it in 1 hour and 44 minutes in aid of Time Is Precious.

Credits

Radio