Stephen Mangan

In Channel 4's The World's Greatest Comedy Characters, Guy was voted 34th.

He starred as Keith in Never Better, a British television sitcom on BBC Two.

He plays a recovering alcoholic Keith Merchant and Kate Ashfield is his long-suffering wife Anita.

The series was written by Fintan Ryan for World Productions.

Stephen James Mangan (born 16 May 1968) is an English actor, comedian, presenter and writer.

After graduating from RADA in 1994, Mangan did not pursue lead roles on screen, preferring to take what he saw as the less limited opportunities on the stage.

Between 1994 and 2000, he performed in plays throughout the UK and the West End before joining the theatre company Cheek by Jowl for an international tour of Much Ado About Nothing, earning him a nomination for a National Theatre Ian Charleson Award.

He worked again for director Declan Donnellan at the Royal Shakespeare Company in School for Scandal, and at the Savoy Theatre in Hay Fever.

Mangan's breakthrough television performance was as Adrian Mole in the six-part BBC TV show series Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years in 2001.

That same year he appeared in Sword of Honour on Channel 4, alongside Daniel Craig.

In 2002, he appeared as Dan Moody in the I'm Alan Partridge episode "Bravealan".

A scene where Alan repeatedly shouts "Dan!"

In 2008, he played the title role in The Norman Conquests, directed by Matthew Warchus, at The Old Vic and then at the Circle in the Square on Broadway.

The production was a huge critical success earning several Tony Award nominations, including one for Mangan himself and won the Tony Award for Best Revival.

In 2009, Free Agents, a romantic black comedy starred Mangan, Sharon Horgan and Anthony Head.

Originally a pilot for Channel 4 in November 2007, the series began on 13 February 2009.

It spawned a short lived US remake, which was cancelled after just four episodes aired, although four more were later released on Hulu.

He played the title role in Dirk Gently, a British comedy detective drama TV series based on characters from the Dirk Gently novels by Douglas Adams.

The series was created by Howard Overman and co-starred Darren Boyd as his sidekick Richard MacDuff.

Recurring actors included Helen Baxendale as MacDuff's girlfriend Susan Harmison, Jason Watkins as Dirk's nemesis DI Gilks and Lisa Jackson as Dirk's receptionist Janice Pearce.

Unlike most detective series Dirk Gently featured broadly comic touches and even some science fiction themes such as time travel and artificial intelligence.

He has said that he was "bitterly upset" at the BBC's axing of the series after four episodes due to a freeze on the licence fee.

The four episodes of Dirk Gently were later released on the BritBox streaming service.

He played the title role in "The Hunt for Tony Blair", a one-off episode of The Comic Strip Presents..., a British television comedy, which was first shown on Channel 4 on 14 October 2011.

In 2012, he appeared at the Royal Court in a Joe Penhall play, Birthday, directed by Roger Michell, playing a pregnant man.

Mangan starred as Bertie Wooster in Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense at the Duke of York's Theatre alongside Matthew Macfadyen as Jeeves from October 2013 until they were replaced by Mark Heap and Robert Webb in April 2014.

He starred as Bertie Wooster in Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense at the Duke of York's Theatre in the West End, which won the 2014 Olivier Award for Best New Comedy.

The production won the 2014 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy.

at Dan from a distance in a car park, while Dan seems not to notice him, was named the second best moment from the series by Metro, and in 2014 Mangan said that he has "Dan!"

shouted at him by passers-by almost every day.

Mangan played Guy Secretan in the BAFTA-winning British sitcom Green Wing.

He has played Guy Secretan in Green Wing, Dan Moody in I'm Alan Partridge, Seán Lincoln in Episodes, Bigwig in Watership Down, Postman Pat in Postman Pat: The Movie, Richard Pitt in Hang Ups, Andrew in Bliss (2018), and Nathan Stern in The Split (2018–2022).

As a stage actor, he was Tony-nominated for his portrayal of Norman in The Norman Conquests on Broadway.

He co-presented the 2020 edition of Children In Need for the BBC.

Mangan was born in Ponders End, in Enfield, north London, to Irish parents.

He has two sisters, Anita and Lisa.

Mangan was educated at two private schools, Lochinver House School for boys in Potters Bar, and Haileybury and Imperial Service College (now co-educational), a boarding school in the village of Hertford Heath, Hertfordshire.

He was in a school prog rock band called Aragon, who recorded an album called The Wizard's Dream.

After earning a Bachelor of Arts in law at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, Mangan took a year out to care for his mother, Mary, who died of colon cancer at age 45.

Weeks after her death, he auditioned for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and went on to study there for three years.