Andy Parsons

Andy Parsons

Date of birth: 30-11-1966
Best known as a regular panellist on BBC Two's Mock the Week, Andy Parsons started in comedy as a double-act with Henry Naylor, who he met at Cambridge University, where they became part of the Footlights group.

They started TBA, which was billed as London's first sketch comedy club, and performed together at the Edinburgh Fringe seven times between 1993 and 2001. In 1998, they also performed in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.

Like many writers, they cut their teeth on Radio 4's Week Ending, and were offered their own show, Parsons and Naylor’s Pull-Out Sections in 2001, which ran for nine series on Radio 2. In 2008, Parsons wrote and starred in his own Radio 4 sitcom, The Lost Weblog Of Scrooby Trevithick.

On TV, the pair also wrote for Spitting Image, Noel's House Party, Hale and Pace and Alas Smith And Jones, among others.

Parsons performed his first solo show at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2000, and returned regularly until 2006. He is a regular member of the Comedy Store topical show Cutting Edge and has appeared at the Montreal Just For Laughs comedy fesival in 2006; the New Zealand Laugh Fest in 2003, 2004 and 2006; and Cat Laughs, Kilkenny, in 2005.

He won a Time Out award for comedy in 2002, and was named best international act by the New Zealand Comedy Guild in 2004.

Apart from Mock The Week, his other TV credits include Live At The Apollo, QI, Live Floor Show, They Think It's All Over and the BBC's Stand-Up Show.

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Comedians join Scala Radio

The Classical Comedy Club launches this weekend

Isy Suttie, Sindhu Vee, Maisie Adam and Andy Parsons are all set to host one-off classical music shows on Scala Radio.

Each stand-up is hosting an episode of The Classical Comedy Club, which will run on Sunday nights across February.

The broadcaster says the aim is to ‘prove that classical music doesn’t have to be serious, sombre or sentimental’.

In the two-hour episodes, the comics will share anecdotes from their childhoods, including their earliest memories of classical music and the people they associate with it, as well as reminiscing about their favourite funny films and sitcoms and play music featured in them.

Suttie, who presents the first episode, said: ‘I think some people, and I include myself in this, can get intimidated by classical music and kind of think you’ve got to know who the composer is.

‘So, I was really excited to be asked to do this and to think back on the classical music that has been part of my life that I didn’t even really realise was part of my life until I was asked to write it all down.

‘I just want to take away the assumption that you have to have a knowledge about it.’

The shows air from 6pm for the next four weeks on digital radio, the Scala app or at Scalaradio.co.uk

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Published: 4 Feb 2022

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