Jimmy Carr has been named in a list of people who will “shape our lives in the 21st century”.

Carr is the only comic among the 80 artists, business people and politicians on the Observer’s Bright Stuff list.

However the list, compiled “after hours of debate”, does also include The Office producer Ash Atalla, satirist Charlie Brooker and Jerry Springer: The Opera composer Richard Thomas.

The newspaper said of 30-year-old Carr: “He's funny as well as nasty, with a stage and TV presence (and work ethic) that could make him one of Britain's best-known comedians.”

Brooker is currently working with Brass Eye creator Chris Morris on a new series about Nathan Barley from his now-mothballed website TVGoHome, which is sure to earn him headlines.

Atalla, meanwhile, has moved from the BBC to Talkback Thames, where he is working on a new slate of comedies.

The Observer compiled the list to mark 25 years since it tipped a generation of bright young things who went on to define the country's culture, politics and economics.