Kevin Eldon

Kevin Eldon (born 2 October 1959) is an English actor and comedian.

Eldon occupies half a page in Oliver Gray's book called Volume – A Cautionary Tale of Rock and Roll Obsession; this includes coverage of punk-era Hampshire where, in late 1978, with two schoolmates from Bay House School, Gosport, Eldon started a band named Virginia Doesn't. Virginia Doesn't's career peaked with a session broadcast on Radio One's John Peel Show on 18 October 1979.

In early 1980, Virginia Doesn't morphed into The Time, in which Eldon was again the front man.

The Time recorded and performed from April 1980 until August 1982, during which time the band gigged extensively and played support slots with The Jam, Joe Jackson's Jumpin' Jive and Bad Manners.

The Time had songs included on several self-released tape compilations, although they never secured a recording contract.

In August 1982, The Time became Gerry Hackett & The Fringes, a spoof Sixties revival band.

On 6 November 1983 Gerry Hackett & The Fringes appeared on BBC South's 'The Cellar Show' presented by John Sessions.

He featured in British comedy television shows of the 1990s including Fist of Fun, This Morning with Richard Not Judy, Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge, Big Train, Brass Eye and Jam.

He has been a practising Buddhist since 1990.

Eldon started on the stand-up circuit in the early 1990s performing an act in-character as the political poet Paul Hamilton, but has also, on occasion, done stand-up as himself.

On the circuit, Eldon formed a friendship with stand-up comedian Stewart Lee, which would later lead to an invitation to work with him on the radio series Lee & Herring's Fist of Fun with Lee's comedy partner Richard Herring.

Lee and Herring would usually refer to him as "the actor Kevin Eldon", in reference to his claim to being an actor rather than a comedian.

Eldon's work sat well with that of Lee and Herring, and he continued to work with them on many of their projects, including The Lee & Herring Radio Show, Fist of Fun and This Morning with Richard Not Judy.

He played recurring characters Simon Quinlank (the self-styled "King of Hobbies") and 'Rod Hull', a nonsensical version of Rod Hull with a prosthetic limb and an obsession with jelly, especially the 'green' variety.

Eldon has appeared in many British comedy shows from the 1990s onwards.

During the 1990s he worked with such comedians as Simon Pegg, Mark Heap, Julia Davis, Amelia Bullmore and others in the sketch-comedy series Big Train.

One of Eldon's more notable characters for Big Train, George Martin, was inspired by his impression of the Beatles producer.

He had previously worked with some of the cast in the satirical series Brass Eye, and the dark comedy Jam, both written by Christopher Morris.

In 1994 and 1997, he appeared at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival as part the comedy troupe Cluub Zarathustra; other comedians in the troupe including Roger Mann, Johnny Vegas, Simon Munnery, and later Stewart Lee.

They were given a Channel 4 pilot, which led to the television series Attention Scum! The book You Are Nothing by Robert Wringham praises the performers' talent.

One of his first appearances on television was in 1995 in Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge as Fanny Thomas, a foul-mouthed transvestite chef and then later appeared on I'm Alan Partridge as the laughing racist, Mike Samson.

In 2004, Eldon appeared in the BAFTA award-winning dark comedy Nighty Night as Terry Tyrrell, husband to Julia Davis' character.

They also appeared later in Hunderby (another dark comedy written by Julia Davis), Little Crackers and Psychobitches.

He worked again with Pegg in an episode in the sitcom Spaced with Mark Gatiss, both of whom played two Matrix-style government agents, and in the comedy film Hot Fuzz where he played Sergeant Tony Fisher.

He has two children with his wife Holly, whom he met in late 2005 on the set of Hyperdrive, where she was the art director.

In late 2006, Eldon, alongside Bill Bailey, helped to organise and produce a short tour and a West End run of Pinter's People at the Haymarket Theatre, London.

The show was a collection of sketches written by Harold Pinter, also starring Geraldine McNulty and Sally Phillips.

Eldon has appeared on stage and screen numerous times with the comedian Bill Bailey; they performed as a spoof of the German band Kraftwerk, singing German versions of the "Hokey Cokey" and The Wurzels song "The Combine Harvester" for the recorded version of Bill Bailey's Part Troll comedy tour, along with two others (John Moloney and Martin Trenaman). He played the same role in Bailey's 2007 Tinselworm tour, Channel 4's Comedy Gala in 2010, and Bailey's 2010 Dandelion Mind tour.

They appeared together again when Eldon was a panellist on Never Mind the Buzzcocks in 2007 (with Bailey as team captain), as well as on the 'Dave' show Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled.

They also acted together in the sitcom Black Books 'Grapes of Wrath' episode, where Eldon played "The Cleaner".

Eldon has also had minor guest starring roles in numerous comedy projects, including Smack the Pony, Green Wing, The IT Crowd and The Kennedys.

From March 2009, Eldon appeared in Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle in a number of the show's sketches most often with Paul Putner.

Eldon would later act in Nathan Barley and the 2010 film Four Lions as a police sniper (also written by Christopher Morris).

In February 2010, Eldon appeared in the pilot for a "sort-of-sketch-show" called Missing Scene.

In 2011 he appeared in sketches throughout How TV Ruined Your Life, and with Paul Whitehouse, as one of a pair of women 1950s typists in season four of Harry and Paul.

In 2013, Eldon appeared in his own BBC sketch series It's Kevin.

He has also appeared in minor speaking roles in the HBO series Game of Thrones.

Eldon was born in Chatham, Kent.

In October 2013, Eldon read his own short story "What do you say?"

on the storytelling series Crackanory, an adult-oriented remake of the children's television series Jackanory.