Al Murray

Biography

Alastair James Hay Murray (born 10 May 1968) is an English comedian.

After graduating from the University of Oxford, Murray's comedy career began by working with Harry Hill for BBC Radio 4. He regularly performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, before launching his "Pub Landlord" persona. This led to the Sky One sitcom Time Gentlemen Please and the chat show Al Murray's Happy Hour for ITV.

In 2003, Murray was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy, and in 2007 he was voted the 16th greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups. He continues to perform as a stand-up and is a regular on British TV and radio.

Murray's principal character in performance is an English publican with conservative values and an animosity towards Germans and the French; he challenges audience members to name any country before producing some plausible instance of Britain bettering it. The character has a great love of the British 1970s rock band Queen, often getting musician(s) on his show to perform one of Queen's tunes in their own style. He has described his persona as a "know-all know-nothing blowhard who knows the answer to every question even though he hasn't been asked any of them".