I met Kiell Smith-Bynoe at a tableread a few years ago, then saw him again just before Ghosts was about to come out. Of course now he’s a superstar, so it was great to work with him for a few days earlier this year on Ghosts, and I was over the moon when he asked me to be in his sketch show pilot, a Channel 4 Blap. It was a lot of fun to shoot, and the whole thing turned out great. There’s some other great people in it too. Do check it out – hopefully it’ll get a series! I’m in the “Murder Mystery” sketch after about 8:21
Friday night was an unusual scenario for me for three reasons. Firstly, I was in two TV shows broadcasting on the same night, on the same channel (BBC1). The first show was the new Tom Basden comedy starring Katherine Parkinson and Jim Howick, Here We Go (formally Pandemonium). The second was long running Lee Mack comedy, Not Going Out.
So the second unusual, and I dare I say it, interesting thing about this particular Friday night is that both characters I played had dogs. My character in Here We Go was actually credited as “Dog Owner”, and my Not Going Out character was a tree surgeon named Tom Taylor.
Now let’s get on to the third thing. I’ve been cut from a few things over the years – it’s just the way it sometimes goes – but never have I experienced what I did for Here We Go. Originally I was actually “Man On Phone” as my dialogue with Katherine and Jim is actually via speakerphone before they return my dog to me. When the producers asked me to come and do some additional ADR (an archery commentator, a radio DJ) they nervously informed me that they’d actually re-recorded my dialogue as I didn’t sound nasty enough. In fact, it is now Ed Kear who effectively plays my voice in the episode. Oh well, that’s another story for the podcast! You should be able to hear me as the archery commentator in Episode 4.
Now here’s a funny one. I got offered a part in Bloods, the comedy on Sky, which unfortunately clashed with something else I was shooting at the time. They very kindly offered me another part, but that disappeared in a rewrite. So again very kindly, they offered me a small role of a paramedic in episode 5 which came out on Wednesday. Great to work with Sam Kayo and the legendary Jan Horrocks, but my goodness that trolley was a pain to get on the back of that ambulance.
Here’s me as a Bloodthirster in the new Total War: Warhammer III which was released last month. I’ve been making this really funny joke on the socials about these being the unprocessed clips where they’re clearly processed. I’m laughing now just thinking about it.
Here’s something a little unusual. Last year I recorded the audio for the part of Mr Scraps in a kids show that would be performed at the delayed Dubai Expo 2020. As well as the normal dialogue I had a little song including a rap. We did it remotely from my home studio where I was directed over Zoom by people in Australia, Dubai and Egypt! And here is a video of the show with a bald gentleman miming to my recording.
You can watch an official video (which I can’t embed) here.
A wonderful man who has employed me again and again is director Tommy Forbes, and he got me in yet again to play a scientist in Southampton FC’s new kit launch video. My job, along with my fantastic assistant, Yuriko Kotani, was to extract DNA from a number of players, past and present. That’s Che Adams I’m antagonising in that photo (with a mop on my head), and James Ward-Prowse, Matt Le Tissier and Franny Benali were among the others. Lots of fun, and you can watch it here:
Very happy to get this episode out. Abi was really great and this episode turned our very well. We probably planned it out a bit more carefully than previous efforts (for Tim Plester’s episode, for example, we actually filmed two alternate endings but then used both!) but it was still a tricky edit! Always have to throw away such good stuff!
This is fun. An audiobook I co-narrated is a finalist in this year’s Audie Awards. I think that’s a pretty big deal so is quite exciting. You can check out the other finalists etc here.
I’m very happy that this episode is finally out, not only because I think it’s really funny but also because it was a tricky edit because there was so much good stuff that had be thrown away for the run time. Sam did a wonderful job with the edit especially during a particularly tricky time over the last couple of months with juggling home working with home schooling, and Tim was great with loads of ideas. I hope you enjoy it.
A couple of months ago The Young Knives invited people to remix one of their tracks, and gave out the stems. I think they had about 60 submissions, and I’m very pleased to see mine up on their Soundcloud page. It’s pretty out there but I’m happy with it!
I had a great time working on The Emily Atack Show back in July. I did 3 days on it, shooting 3 sketches which were shown over 2 episodes. Emily is lovely and it was great to work with director Tommy Forbes again. Everything was socially distanced and filmed cleverly to comply with Covid restrictions so extra kudos to the team! If you missed it when it was on last month, here are the sketches.
I’m a bit late posting about this one because I must admit after I did the session back in 2019 (quite a quick home session), I forgot about it. But here is Nurgloth, the boss at the end of the The Enchanter’s Lair mission of Vermintide 2. He’s a bit of a toughy! In the video above I’ve cut him in with some of my Blightreaper dialogue I did for the Shadows over Bögenhafen DLC for the same game. Enjoy!
I was very happy to be cast as the Fial Darg, the fallen God himself, in SpellForce 3: Fallen God. Had some great sessions on this. Check out some footage in the video above, and of course do check out the game itself.
And we’re back! It wasn’t a one-off! Episode 2 with the lovely Kenneth Collard is now live. I met Kenneth at a tableread for Cuckoo after which my part was actually cut in a script rewrite. He said he enjoyed the first episode so I asked if he wanted to do one and he was up for it. Enjoy!
My second album with Dave and Jon is out now on all the streaming sites plus you can get vinyl, CD or tape versions all with slightly different covers. I’m very happy with how this turned out so I’d love you to check it out x
Very happy to release the first episode of my new online show today. The idea originally started off as a filmed podcast with a Larry Sanders type element of behind the scenes… but Covid lockdown happened soon after we’d decided to start getting it off the ground and it changed into a Zoom thing. It’s a continuation from Rich Keeble Vanity Project with the same version of myself I played in that, although he’s picked himself up from the disastrous events at the end of that series and is trying to make a go of this chatshow format. But will it work out as he planned…? Probably not.
The Criminal Audition Original Soundtrack album is out now on all the streaming sites. It’s very good! There are a number of dialogue snippets from the film too so I pop up from time to time. My first time on a soundtrack album! Check it out.
Alexis Strum is a friend of mine and very funny – she is doing great work over on her live streaming channel on Twitch. I was her guest on Saturday’s episode of The HR department which was a lot of fun!
Katherine Ryan’s new Netflix sitcom The Duchess came out today. I did a day on the show last year, and had a great time on set, as well as reading in a load of characters at the readthrough. Katherine is great, Toby the director was also lovely, and I have to thank Catherine Willis yet again for bringing me in the room. Unfortunately a few months ago I received a lovely email from Gavin the producer explaining that they’d had to cut my scene in half for run time, and therefore my dialogue had had to go. Obviously it’s a shame, but these things happen. Anyway, you can actually still see me sat in the audience in the scene above (which is in episode 3), so if you catch sight of me and think I’ve taken up background/SA work, now you know! My character was called Ted by the way. Maybe he’ll get another chance to appear!
