Josie Long

Josie Isabel Long (born 17 April 1982) is an English comedian.

She started performing as a stand-up at the age of 14 and won the BBC New Comedy Awards at 17.

She contributed sketches and one-liners to BBC Radio 1's 2004/5 comedy show, The Milk Run with Andrew O'Neill.

One edition of the show was entirely given over to a script she co-wrote with her friend Dan Harkin, entitled The Adventures Of Marco Polo.

Along with fellow comics Hils Barker, Steve Hall and James Sherwood, she founded the All-Singing, All-Dancing Competitive News Bonanza, a live topical panel show that ran at the Red Lion pub in Soho in 2004/05, and at the Arts Theatre Club in Soho in 2006.

After graduating Long returned to live stand-up, supporting Stewart Lee on his spring 2005 tour.

In March that year, Long was named Best Newcomer at the 2005 Chortle Awards.

In 2005 she began publishing a fanzine, Drawing Moustaches in Magazines Monthly Magazine (Bi-Monthly), which is distributed for free, and has featured contributions from Robin Ince, Kevin Eldon and Stewart Lee, as well as Danielle Ward and Isy Suttie.

She appeared in the show An Audience With Dan Nightingale & Josie Long with Mancunian comic Dan Nightingale, at the Café Royal, at the 2005 Edinburgh Fringe.

In 2006, Long won the If.comeddies Best Newcomer award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for her show Kindness and Exuberance.

She has been nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Show three times.

In 2006 she won the If.comedies Best Newcomer award at the Fringe for her show Kindness and Exuberance.

In 2006 she also launched her own monthly comedy clubs, the Sunday Night Adventure Club, at the ABC Café in Crystal Palace, London (later at the Black Sheep pub), and The OK Club at the Boogaloo pub in Highgate, North London.

In her 2007/2008 tour Trying is Good her act often involved drawing a sea scene on her arms and stomach.

Long has a love of appliqué and the V&A Museum, and live Boggle contests sometimes form a part of her performances.

She has appeared at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (2007–10), the Adelaide Fringe Festival (2008), the New Zealand Comedy Festival (2008, 2010) and the Montreal Just For Laughs Festival (2008).

Her show, Trying is Good was nominated for the Barry Award in Melbourne 2008.

She appeared on the Jon Richardson Show on 27 July 2008 and again on 15 February 2009.

On 28 September 2008, she performed at the HungaMunga Festival at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club.

On 9 October 2008 she appeared on Never Mind the Buzzcocks in the second programme of the 22nd series.

In 2009 she toured her show All of the Planet's Wonders, playing 14 dates during February and March.

Her radio series based on the show, Josie Long: All of the Planet's Wonders was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in early 2009.

On 19 January 2009 she appeared on the radio panel game Just a Minute.

She appeared in Australian improvised-comedy show Thank God You're Here twice, the first of which aired on 6 May 2009.

Long has been nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Show three times, with her 2010 show, Be Honourable!, 2011's The Future Is Another Place and 2012's Romance & Adventure.

Recordings of the former two were released on a cassette album entitled Lost Cats.

Between 2011 and 2017 she ran and hosted "The Lost Treasures of the Black Heart" comedy club at the Black Heart pub in Camden Town, which was recorded and made available as a podcast.

Long has written for the Channel 4 teen comedy-drama series Skins.

She has also appeared in an online webisode and episodes five and 10 of the second series of the show, in which she plays a college careers adviser, and appeared again in episode five of the third series, reprising that role, this time, however, in another career.

She makes a return appearance in series six as the college guidance counsellor in episode one.

In 2012, Long and director Doug King produced two short comedy films in Glasgow called Let's Go Swimming and Romance and Adventure, which were nominated for a BAFTA Scotland New Talent Award.

Long was born in Sidcup and spent her early life in Orpington, London, where she attended Newstead Wood School for Girls.

She began performing stand-up comedy at 14, winning the BBC New Comedy Awards at the age of 17.

Long attended Michael Knighton's comedy course in Beckenham, London.

At 18 she gave up stand-up whilst attending Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford, ran experimental comedy clubs, and graduated with a degree in English.

Since 2013 Long has been the presenter of the BBC Radio 4 short documentary series and podcast Short Cuts, which was won multiple awards including the Gold for Best Radio Podcast at the British Podcast Awards in both 2017 and 2018.

She has also been involved in BBC Switch, on a weekly mini-feature called Josie Long's Confuse the Teacher Feature, where a word is read out by Long for young people listening to the show to include in their homework, which was formed after her suggestion of the idea during an interview on the show with Annie Mac.

She also appeared regularly in Robin Ince's podcast Show & Tell, now called Robin and Josie's Utter Shambles, co-hosted the Resonance FM show I, DJ with Danielle Ward and Isy Suttie, and guested on Answer Me This! podcast.

She has also DJ-ed at the London indiepop club night Scared To Dance.

As of 2014 she has performed seven solo shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and performed five subsequent UK tours in springs 2007, 2008 and 2009, Autumn 2010 and spring 2012.