On a trampoline

For his Radio 4 show The Gambler

More Tim FitzHigham videos

A member of the Infinite Number of Monkeys sketch team - nominated for the Perrier best newcomer award in 1999 – Tim FitzHigham has since embarked on an increasingly eccentric series of adventures, making Edinburgh shows out of his exploits.

In 2003, he broke 383 year-old World Record by paddling an 85 per cent paper boat 160 miles down the River Thames to raise money for Comic Relief, which earned him the freedom of the City of London.

The following year he tried to cross the Channel in a bathtub - but the attempt was called off after 20 miles due to a force 6 storm. Undeterred, he tried again in 2005, successfully arriving at Tower Bridge after a 130-mile row. Thomas Crapper and Co. released a lavatory named The Honorable FitzHigham to celebrate the journey - the company's second ever commemorative lavatory in history; the other commemorating Queen Victoria's jubilee.

In Trafalgar Square in 2006 he tried to to erect the world's longest clothes line for World Environment Day, but the attempt failed. However, his attempts to emulate Cervantes's hero Don Quixote were more successful, and he was appointed Most Puissant Knight de Santa Maria in the West Indies and the 650-year-old title Pittancer of Selby Town in the West Riding, North Yorkshire.

Aways from his adventures, FitzHigham has toured extensively with the Flanders & Swann tribute show At the Drop of a Hippopotamu from 2001 to the present, and played the Dauphin in a touring production on Henry V.

One of his first tastes of comedy was as part of London's topical Newsrevue team in 1999.

Tim Fitzhigham: Fringe 2012
Live Review
Pleasance Courtyard

Tim Fitzhigham’s wife must long for the day he takes up golf or fishing. His ceaseless quest for madcap adventure has seen the Fringe veteran row bathtubs down the Channel, inflate giant balloons and now, attempt to send a message 50 miles in under an hour, only using methods available in the 18th Century.

How much you will enjoy this show depends largely on how interested you are in that proposition. Fitzhigham is a charmingly raffish raconteur but it can seem a long hour if you don’t share his enthusiasm and doggedness for silly challenges, asthis is essentially a blow-by-blow account of his thought process with video evidence to show his workings.

After making the bet with pal Alex Horne – whose dry demeanour proves a nice counterpoint to his friend’s plummy effusiveness – Fitzhigham proves relentless in his attempts to win, and embarks on a journey that takes in cricket matches with various name-checked comedy friends, conversations with the Army, a range of homemade contraptions, niche history, a lot of maths and, of course, pigeons.

Wide-eyed, high-speed recollections are interspersed with illustrative video and audio clips, including a lovely animation that accompanies an equally delightful phone call in which Fitzhigham attempts to procure a cannon.

But I’ve never been convinced by this style of live comedy documentary, which seems better suited to television, and Fitzhigham does little to change that. Although he spins a good yarn, the comedy is incidental – it’s hard to get away from the suspicion stand-up is just the way Fitzhigham justifies his engineered high-jinks.

Still, there is plenty to like about this show, an endearing example of the fine tradition of English upper-class eccentricity.

Felt like i was part of something special sitting in the ark in the Pleasance this year,little children stools and a leaking boat from the rain, and delightful Tim, a show to remember

julie, September 2010

Excellent show last night Sir Tim!

Popsy, July 2009

Can say, "gadzooks!" and not look ridiculous. Marvelous chap!

brendonburns, May 2007