Harry Hill

Matthew Keith Hall (born 1 October 1964), known professionally as Harry Hill, is an English comedian, presenter and writer.

He pursued a career in stand-up following years working as a medical doctor, developing an off-beat, energetic performance style that fused elements of surrealism, observational comedy, slapstick, satire and music.

When performing, he usually wears browline glasses and a dress shirt with a distinctive oversized collar and cuffs.

Hill was born as Matthew Keith Hall in Woking, Surrey, on 1 October 1964 and grew up in Staplehurst, Kent, where he attended the local primary school.

At the age of 14, Hill moved with his family to Hong Kong for two years and attended Island School there.

He was later educated at Angley School and then Cranbrook School in Kent and St George's Hospital Medical School.

He received his MBBS medical degree from the University of London in 1988.

Hill worked as a Proctologist at Doncaster Royal Infirmary, before quitting the medical profession because he "didn't feel in control of what was happening"; he is still registered on the General Medical Council's list of Registered Medical Practitioners.

He won the Perrier Award for Best Newcomer at the 1992 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and began his career in radio and television comedy with the radio series Harry Hill's Fruit Corner (1993–1997).

Hill achieved his breakthrough in 1992, when he won the Perrier Award for Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Shortly after, a radio show starring Hill was commissioned by BBC Radio 4 entitled Harry Hill's Fruit Corner.

Hill hosted the show as himself, and each week he was joined by various guest performers, as well as regular character actors including Al Murray and Burt Kwouk.

The show featured a variety of other celebrity guests during its run including Rolf Harris and Ronnie Corbett.

Each episode is interspersed with Hill's stand up routines.

Fruit Corner ran for four series on BBC Radio 4.

Hill made his television breakthrough in 1994, when he starred in BBC Two black-and-white silent-comedy series Harry Hill's Fruit Fancies.

In a similar format to Fruit Corner, Hill performed a series of sketches, with celebrity guests making cameo appearances.

The series ran for six episodes on BBC Two between October and December 1994.

For Christmas that year, a VHS containing a 100-minute compilation of the best material from the series, as well as unseen sketches, was released by BBC Video.

Hill was a regular on Saturday Live, which was broadcast in 1996 on ITV for eight episodes.

Harry Hill got his own television series on Channel 4 in 1997.

Among the regular characters were Harry Hill's big brother, Alan, played by Al Murray, and his adopted son, Alan Jr., played by Matt Bradstock.

Burt Kwouk also appeared in many episodes as Harry's "Chicken Catcher" – and each week, he would come up with an excuse as to why he has not yet captured a chicken, followed by a performance of the song "Hey Little Hen".

In later series, Hill and Kwouk appeared in sketches as Karl Lagerfeld and Gianni Versace.

Hill's screen wife Mai Sung also made several appearances on the show, mainly on the theme of trying to steal his Abbey National bank savings book.

Another character that featured on the show was Stouffer the Cat, a glove puppet cat made from blue rubber.

Stouffer would normally sit in a throne, supported by a rubber arm in the style of Rod Hull, and was employed to intimidate guests during Hill's standup routines.

Some of Stouffer's catchphrases are "he got a big face" and "sorted – respect due".

At the end of each episode, an event called "The Badger Parade" was supposed to take place.

The parade featured a number of puppet badgers that included "Gareth Southgate badger" and "Tasmin Archer badger", among others – however, every week, there would be some kind of problem, resulting in the badgers being unable to perform.

In place of the badger parade, Hill would usually sing a song, with a guest that he had invited onto the show.

A tie-in book relating to the series was released in October 1998, entitled Harry Hill's Fun Book.

The series was cancelled in April 2000, but was revived by ITV in March 2003, as The All-New Harry Hill Show.

It was broadcast along with episodes of TV Burp.

Regular features on the ITV version included the Hamilton Challenge, featuring Neil and Christine Hamilton, and a butterfly in blue jeans.

He has hosted his own television comedy show Harry Hill's TV Burp (2001–2012), and narrated You've Been Framed! from (2004–2022).

In October 2001, Hill moved to ITV in a lucrative deal, in which he created an all new show, Harry Hill's TV Burp, where he would take a look at the week's television, showing clips from various British television programmes, and framing them with funny commentary or intercutting additional footage.

The series would feature a regular stable of all new characters, including the Knitted Character; a small knitted rabbit, Wagbo, a demon love child whose parents are reportedly Wagner Carillho and Mary Byrne of X Factor fame, an interpretation of Heather Trott from EastEnders, played by Steve Bernham, as well as a doll of The Apprentice star Alan Sugar, who would regularly rap before clips of The Apprentice were introduced.

The Channel 4 series was revisited in August 2012, for a retrospective documentary entitled Whatever Happened to Harry Hill?.

His other projects include The Harry Hill Movie, released in 2013.