Andy Hollingworth began photographing comedians in 1995 in response to his earliest childhood memory - watching his normally serious grandfather chuckling and guffawing at the antics of the Yorkshire comic Charlie Williams on The Golden Shot game show in the early 1970's.

His series of portraits began by tracking down Charlie and then photographing the other comics of his generation. Sittings with Russ Abbott, Frank Carson, Roy Walker and the infamous Bernard Manning followed. Sponsorship from the photochemical firm Ilford then enabled Andy to produce a long-running series featuring comedians, comedy actors and writers active since 1960.

He has photographed more than 130 personalities from the world of comedy and his work is now recognised as an important archive for the medium. Andy's photographs are included in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery, Rotherham City Gallery & the Picture House Centre for Photography.

His work has been published in the Independent, The Big Issue, Daily Express, Practical Photography, the Journal of the Royal Photographic Society and Photo Technique.

He has spent the last year producing work at the Comedy Store in Manchester photographing visiting stars such as John Thomson, Peter Kay, Rich Hall, Paul Merton, Greg Proops and Tony Slattery. This work was featured in a recent exhibition as part of that city's Comedy Festival. He has recently produced a large-scale permanent installation at the Manchester Store featuring the world -famous improv stars the Comedy Store Players and their guests.

He lists Ross Noble, Johnny Vegas and Daniel Kitson among his current live favourites and the Royle Family, Dad's Army and the Marx Brothers as his celluloid heroes.

Andy can be contacted at andy@hollies58.freeserve.co.uk