Hull-born Reece Shearsmith is a quarter of The League Of Gentlemen alongside Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Jeremy Dyson (who writes, but does not perform)

They net at Bretton Hall drama school in their late teens, and began performing a sketch show at London’s Cockpit Theatre in 1995, soon afterwards landing a residency at the Canal Café pub theatre, which compelled them to create new material at a fast pace.

In 1997 they won the Perrier, and their subsequent radio series On the Town with The League of Gentlemen, set in the fictional town of Spent, won a Sony Award.

In 1999 the League moved to television – and Royston Vasey – with subsequent series in 2000 (including a typically sinister Christnmas special) and 2002; plus a feature-length film, The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse, in 2005.

On stage, they toured large regional theatres in 2000, had a six-week run at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in spring 2003, and toured a pantomime-themed show The League of Gentlemen Are Behind You in 2005.

Outside of the League, Shearsmith played the insane villain Tony in the Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer comedy Catterick; Robot-Wars obsessed TA soldier Dexter in Spaced; and neurotic Dr Flynn in BBC Two hospital sitcom TLC.

On the West End, he appeared in Art in 2003, alongside his League Of Gentlemen costars, in As You Like It at the Wyndhams in 2005, and in The Producers as Leo Bloom in 2006.