Dom Joly
Encyclopedia
Dominic John Romulus "Dom" Joly (icon; born 15 November 1967) is a British
television
comedian
and journalist
. He came to note as the star of Trigger Happy TV
, a hidden camera
show that was sold to over seventy countries worldwide. Since then, Joly has continued to make edgy off-beat television like World Shut Your Mouth
for BBC1 and Dom Joly's Happy Hour, a spoof
travel show for Sky One
.
Joly is also an author with several books to his name, and an award-winning travel writer for both the Sunday Times and the Mail On Sunday. He writes several regular columns for various UK nationals and periodicals including a weekly sports column for The Independent
and an eclectic weekly column for the Independent on Sunday.
Joly is currently developing a movie called War Of The Flea in the USA, and published The Dark Tourist in 2010, about dark tourism
. He has also completed filming a documentary on Tintin
for Channel 4 (Back2Back Productions) which aired on 19 March 2010.
Joly was a contestant on the tenth series of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!; he finished in fourth place.
, Lebanon
to British parents and speaks French in addition to English.
that, while in Lebanon, Joly attended the same school, Brummana High School
, as Osama bin Laden
; this was widely received as a joke (as the aim of the TV show is to trick people into guessing whether anecdotes are true or false). He said on Loose Women
on 18 February 2011 that he and bin Laden were at the same school when he was 6 and bin Laden was 18.
Subsequently, Joly was educated in the UK, at two famous independent school
s: first to The Dragon School in the city of Oxford
in Oxfordshire
, and then to Haileybury and Imperial Service College
, near the county town
of Hertford
in Hertfordshire
, followed by the University of London
(at the School of Oriental and African Studies
), in Central London.
, a political discussion programme on Channel 4
, Joly went on to work for The Mark Thomas Comedy Product
because of his political knowledge. He then created his own show for the Paramount Comedy Channel called War of the Flea. Discovering that working in comedy was both easier and more fun than his previous employment, Joly began to develop Trigger Happy TV which had a similar structure to War of the Flea.
Joly's anarchic surreal sketches first started appearing as interstitials during advert breaks on the British Paramount Comedy Channel. In 1999, following a successful fifteen-minute pilot on the Comedy Lab
, Channel 4
commissioned Joly to make a TV series. Trigger Happy TV was born; a hidden camera show that went on to be sold to over seventy countries worldwide. Joly made two series and two Christmas specials before announcing that he wanted to do other things. Joly was nominated for three British Comedy Awards
for the show, won the Silver Rose of Montreux, the BBC2 Award for Best Comedy and the Loaded/Goodfella Comedy Newcomer of the Year.
The three DVDs for the shows were best-sellers, as were the soundtrack albums that Joly had personally selected and mixed himself.
United States
A spoof
documentary about Joly followed, called Being Dom Joly which was produced and written by Joly himself. This aired prior to screenings of Trigger Happy TV in the USA and earned critical acclaim, with one reviewer Bob Croft, LA Times calling Joly "the funniest man in Britain".
A new series of Trigger Happy TV was made for a US audience in 2003 with an altered format in that it featured a band of different "comedians" who performed skits without Joly. Though Joly did cameo sporadically on the show, he was very unhappy with the programme and called it "Trigger Happy by numbers - take joke, put it in slo-mo, add fluffy animals and random indie soundtrack - it was made by uncaring idiots". He had a producer credit on the show, but disassociated himself with the project.
, Joly was secured by the BBC
for a rumoured £5 million. However, his first show for the BBC, This is Dom Joly
, a spoof chatshow in which Joly played an appallingly egotistical media character who had the same name as him, thereby confusing a lot of the audience as to what was real and what wasn't, did not achieve the same success as Trigger Happy TV, leading to the hidden camera format being revamped on BBC1 as World Shut Your Mouth. Featuring all new material and an increased budget relative to Trigger Happy, allowing for pranks to be performed in different countries. It was later released on DVD.
. Dom Joly's Excellent Adventure involved him travelling back to Beirut for the first time since he left in the late 1980s, and embarking on a road trip through the Syrian Desert
to find a cave in which he had scrawled his name in as a child, that he re-discovered after much searching.
digital artist Peter Wilkins
. Together, they explored drinking habits around the world, travelling to the Southern United States
, Russia
, Australia
, Europe
and India
. During the first documentary, the pair explored Miami drinking styles, met up with some hillbillies in the Appalachians
tasting moonshine
, and visited a gay cowboy
bar in Atlanta before taking on the Christian
right in Alabama
's dry counties.
They went on to visit Russia, trying 80% alcohol (by volume) homemade vodka
known as Samogon. He explained, "(y)ou have an hour where you feel you can take on the world, then you black out. But because it’s almost pure alcohol
, no hangover - sadly because I can’t remember it, I don’t know if it’s worth doing". They then visited Australia, Mexico
and Europe before ending the tour in India. It was described in The Guardian
as "a brilliantly surreal take on the tired format that is the TV travel show."
The programme included a lot more than just attempting to discover foreign drinking habits, for instance, in Russia Dom received a haircut from a nude woman and both he and Wilkins performed their own version of a morris dance
before a bemused dance academy. Another instance found them catching crocodiles in Australia.
"The premise of investigating alcohol
is ridiculous," Joly admitted during an interview. "I wanted an excuse to travel the world
, but they (Sky TV
) wanted a focal point. So I said as a joke: 'Well, I quite like drinking.' And they went, 'Fantastic, that’s brilliant!'"
The DVD was released on 1 October 2007.
called "Cooper Brown: He's out there." The column is published as the work of an American character called Cooper Brown
and revolves around his putative adventures as "a garrulous American showbiz type".
His real-life eclectic weekly column for the Independent on Sunday covers subjects as varied as Middle East politics and fifty-foot chickens. Joly also writes a weekly column on the "Weird World of Sport" for The Independent
Sports supplement on Mondays.
He is also a regular travel writer for The Sunday Times
and has written about trips to Costa Rica
, Dominica
, Syria
, Northern California
, Vietnam
, Canada
, Miami, Scotland
, Italy
, Maldives
, South Africa
, Zanzibar
, New Zealand
, Malaysia, Thailand
, Cambodia
, Corsica
Azerbaijan
, Kazakhstan
, North Korea
, Oman
, Ukraine
, British Columbia
, Newfoundland, Quebec
, Lebanon
, Morocco
, Nicaragua
, Mexico
, Jamaica
, Sweden
, Belgium
, Switzerland
, Russia
. At the end of 2006 readers of the paper were asked to vote on where Joly would go every week. He travelled the globe performing various adrenaline sports whilst making a weekly podcast
from South Africa, Spain, The Arctic Circle, Paris and Fort William. He has also written for Esquire Magazine, GQ, The Mail on Sunday
, The London Evening Standard, FHM
, The Observer
and The Spectator
.
In September 2008 Joly won an award at the 2008 Canada Media Awards for "Best Travel Piece" - the piece was written for the Mail on Sunday about a trip to Muskoka in Canada.
Joly wrote a spoof autobiography called Look At Me, Look At Me!, published by Bloomsbury in 2004. Joly's second book, Letters To My Golf Club, is a book of humorous letters and correspondences sent to golf clubs around the world published by Transworld Publishing on 8 October 2007.
Joly published a humor travel book called The Dark Tourist: Sightseeing in the World's Most Unlikely Holiday Destinations (2010) which is about dark tourism
. In the book Joly travels to places like Chernobyl (which he visited on 4 May 2009), Lebanon, North Korea and Iran among others, places that witnessed great tragedy and death. It was commissioned by Simon and Schuster and published on September 2, 2010 in the UK.
Joly recently starred in the ITV2 reality programme Deadline with Janet Street Porter where he had to become a paparazzo. Amongst other highlights he was punched by Lily Allen
, hit over the head with a guitar by Pete Doherty
, called a "persistent little fat cunt flap" by Pierce Brosnan
and snorted vodka with Ingrid Tarrant
.
Joly was a "special correspondent" for the Independent at the Beijing Olympics. He says: "it's always been an ambition to be a foreign correspondent and this is as close as I'll ever get." While in Beijing he also appeared daily on the "Drive" programme on Five Live with Peter Allen.
Joly formed the Teddy Bear Alliance ("Mr Blair, where do you stand on fleas?") and changed his name to Edward 'Teddy' Bear (a reference to "Edward Bear", better known as Winnie-the-Pooh
). He stood in Kensington and Chelsea against Alan Clark
. Hiring out hundreds of teddy bear costumes, he staged mock protests at Westminster
and came fifth out of nine candidates, receiving 218 votes (0.6%). The Alliance was not registered as a political party under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.
than Robert Smith. Joly personally selects all the soundtracks for his TV shows. All three soundtracks albums for Trigger Happy TV
were huge commercial hits. He has also directed a couple of music videos.
Ian Brown
- Golden Gaze
, in which Joly made the whole video in one take, making Brown run through the streets of London being chased by gorillas, frog-men and ninjas before he took refuge in the Prince Charles Cinema.
WigWam
, the duo consisting of Betty Boo
and Alex James
from Blur
asked Joly to direct their first single. Joly decided to pay a weird homage to The Beatles
concert on a roof and filmed the band performing in cat costumes on the roof of a building opposite the Groucho Club in Soho.
that he hosted with humorist Danny Wallace.
Joly also frequently sits in for Gabby Logan
on her Sunday Five Live show. Joly was also a roving reporter for Five Live at both the Beijing Olympics and Wimbledon 2009
.
.
Joly has also talked about plans for a television show based on popular social networking site Facebook
, visiting random people who have added him as a 'friend'. Joly would only accept friend requests if he has any type of connection with them.
In June 2009, it was reported that Joly had completed a script for "a Trigger Happy movie" set in the US.
In 2010, Joly entered the jungle in the middle of the tenth series of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! UK. He finished in 4th place.
er. The couple have a daughter, Parker (born 2000) and son Jackson (born 2004).
Having lived in Notting Hill
before their children were born, Joly and his wife bought a property in the Cotswolds
. They sold his flat to Salman Rushdie and the family now live near Cirencester
.
While they were on holiday in Canada, the house was affected by sewage
from the 2007 UK floods.
In March 2011 Dom Joly announced his first live show, Welcome to Wherever I am, at the Underbelly in London on April 30th.
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
comedian
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...
and journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
. He came to note as the star of Trigger Happy TV
Trigger Happy TV
Trigger Happy TV was a hidden camera/practical joke reality television program. The original British edition of the show, produced by Absolutely Productions, starred Dom Joly and ran for two series on the British television channel Channel 4 from 2000 until 2002...
, a hidden camera
Hidden camera
A hidden camera is a still or video camera used to film people without their knowledge. The camera is "hidden" because it is either not visible to the subject being filmed, or is disguised as another object...
show that was sold to over seventy countries worldwide. Since then, Joly has continued to make edgy off-beat television like World Shut Your Mouth
World Shut Your Mouth (TV series)
World Shut Your Mouth is a hidden camera television series starring Dom Joly.Dom Joly made his name on the similar series Trigger Happy TV on Channel 4, and it is from its great success that he was hired by the BBC to produce new programming. His first effort was an unsuccessful spoof chat show...
for BBC1 and Dom Joly's Happy Hour, a spoof
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
travel show for Sky One
Sky One
Sky1 is the flagship BSkyB entertainment channel available in the United Kingdom and Ireland.The channel first launched on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television, and is the fourth-oldest TV channel in the United Kingdom, behind BBC One , ITV and BBC Two...
.
Joly is also an author with several books to his name, and an award-winning travel writer for both the Sunday Times and the Mail On Sunday. He writes several regular columns for various UK nationals and periodicals including a weekly sports column for The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
and an eclectic weekly column for the Independent on Sunday.
Joly is currently developing a movie called War Of The Flea in the USA, and published The Dark Tourist in 2010, about dark tourism
Dark tourism
Dark tourism is tourism involving travel to sites associated with death and suffering. Thanatourism, derived from the Ancient Greek word thanatos for the personification of death, is associated with dark tourism but refers more specifically to violent death; it is used in fewer contexts than the...
. He has also completed filming a documentary on Tintin
The Adventures of Tintin
The Adventures of Tintin is a series of classic comic books created by Belgian artist , who wrote under the pen name of Hergé...
for Channel 4 (Back2Back Productions) which aired on 19 March 2010.
Joly was a contestant on the tenth series of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!; he finished in fourth place.
Early life
Joly was born in BeirutBeirut
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
, Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
to British parents and speaks French in addition to English.
Education
It was revealed on the game show Would I Lie To You?Would I Lie To You? (TV series)
Would I Lie to You? is a comedy panel game made by Zeppotron for BBC One. It was first broadcast on 16 June 2007.-Format:The show was presented by Angus Deayton in 2007 and 2008, and by Rob Brydon from 2009 onwards...
that, while in Lebanon, Joly attended the same school, Brummana High School
Brummana High School
Brummana High School is a secondary school in Lebanon. It is located in the village of Brummana, situated in Metn, Mount Lebanon, east of the capital city Beirut.This school was established in 1873, by the Quaker Theophilus Waldmeier...
, as Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
; this was widely received as a joke (as the aim of the TV show is to trick people into guessing whether anecdotes are true or false). He said on Loose Women
Loose Women
Loose Women is a British lunchtime television programme, first broadcast in 1999 on ITV. It consists of a panel of four women who interview celebrities and discuss topical issues, ranging from daily politics and current affairs, to celebrity gossip...
on 18 February 2011 that he and bin Laden were at the same school when he was 6 and bin Laden was 18.
Subsequently, Joly was educated in the UK, at two famous independent school
Independent school
An independent school is a school that is independent in its finances and governance; it is not dependent upon national or local government for financing its operations, nor reliant on taxpayer contributions, and is instead funded by a combination of tuition charges, gifts, and in some cases the...
s: first to The Dragon School in the city of Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
in Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....
, and then to Haileybury and Imperial Service College
Haileybury and Imperial Service College
Haileybury and Imperial Service College, , is a prestigious British independent school founded in 1862. The school is located at Hertford Heath, near Hertford, from central London, on of parkland occupied until 1858 by the East India College...
, near the county town
County town
A county town is a county's administrative centre in the United Kingdom or Ireland. County towns are usually the location of administrative or judicial functions, or established over time as the de facto main town of a county. The concept of a county town eventually became detached from its...
of Hertford
Hertford
Hertford is the county town of Hertfordshire, England, and is also a civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district of the county. Forming a civil parish, the 2001 census put the population of Hertford at about 24,180. Recent estimates are that it is now around 28,000...
in Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
, followed by the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
(at the School of Oriental and African Studies
School of Oriental and African Studies
The School of Oriental and African Studies is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the University of London...
), in Central London.
Early career
Following university his work included:- A year as an intern in the PraguePraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
embassy for the European CommissionEuropean CommissionThe European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union.... - A year as a consultant at LEK Consulting, where he formed part of the same intake as Boris JohnsonBoris JohnsonAlexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is a British journalist and Conservative Party politician, who has been the elected Mayor of London since 2008...
- A year as Political Researcher for Around Westminster (BBC Political Programme)
- A year as Political Researcher for the New StatesmanNew StatesmanNew Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
and Roth's Parliamentary Profiles
Television
After being recruited to work as a producer on ITN's House to HouseHouse to House
House to House: A Soldier's Memoir is a 2007 memoir by Iraq War veteran and Silver Star winner David Bellavia.-Summary:House to House is an autobiography about the actions of Staff Sergeant David Bellavia during the second Battle of Fallujah...
, a political discussion programme on Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
, Joly went on to work for The Mark Thomas Comedy Product
Mark Thomas
Mark Clifford Thomas is a left-wing English comedian, presenter, political activist and reporter from south London. He first became known as a guest comic on the BBC Radio 1 comedy show The Mary Whitehouse Experience in the late 1980s. He is best known for political stunts on his show, The Mark...
because of his political knowledge. He then created his own show for the Paramount Comedy Channel called War of the Flea. Discovering that working in comedy was both easier and more fun than his previous employment, Joly began to develop Trigger Happy TV which had a similar structure to War of the Flea.
Trigger Happy TV
United KingdomJoly's anarchic surreal sketches first started appearing as interstitials during advert breaks on the British Paramount Comedy Channel. In 1999, following a successful fifteen-minute pilot on the Comedy Lab
Comedy Lab
Comedy Lab is a British television series which showcases pilots of experimental comedy shows. Series have been aired irregularly on Channel 4 and E4 since 1998....
, Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
commissioned Joly to make a TV series. Trigger Happy TV was born; a hidden camera show that went on to be sold to over seventy countries worldwide. Joly made two series and two Christmas specials before announcing that he wanted to do other things. Joly was nominated for three British Comedy Awards
British Comedy Awards
The British Comedy Awards is an annual awards ceremony in the United Kingdom celebrating notable comedians and entertainment performances of the previous year.-History:...
for the show, won the Silver Rose of Montreux, the BBC2 Award for Best Comedy and the Loaded/Goodfella Comedy Newcomer of the Year.
The three DVDs for the shows were best-sellers, as were the soundtrack albums that Joly had personally selected and mixed himself.
United States
A spoof
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
documentary about Joly followed, called Being Dom Joly which was produced and written by Joly himself. This aired prior to screenings of Trigger Happy TV in the USA and earned critical acclaim, with one reviewer Bob Croft, LA Times calling Joly "the funniest man in Britain".
A new series of Trigger Happy TV was made for a US audience in 2003 with an altered format in that it featured a band of different "comedians" who performed skits without Joly. Though Joly did cameo sporadically on the show, he was very unhappy with the programme and called it "Trigger Happy by numbers - take joke, put it in slo-mo, add fluffy animals and random indie soundtrack - it was made by uncaring idiots". He had a producer credit on the show, but disassociated himself with the project.
2003 BBC contract
Following the success of Trigger Happy TV on Channel 4Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
, Joly was secured by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
for a rumoured £5 million. However, his first show for the BBC, This is Dom Joly
This Is Dom Joly
This is Dom Joly is a spoof chat show presented by Dom Joly, originally shown on BBC Three in 2003. It featured interviews, live bands , "video diary" sketches, and the chance for a guest to describe an activity "in a nutshell".It followed the global success of Trigger Happy TV for Channel 4 with...
, a spoof chatshow in which Joly played an appallingly egotistical media character who had the same name as him, thereby confusing a lot of the audience as to what was real and what wasn't, did not achieve the same success as Trigger Happy TV, leading to the hidden camera format being revamped on BBC1 as World Shut Your Mouth. Featuring all new material and an increased budget relative to Trigger Happy, allowing for pranks to be performed in different countries. It was later released on DVD.
Dom Joly's Excellent Adventure
In 2005, Joly starred in a one-off documentary as part of a series on Sky OneSky One
Sky1 is the flagship BSkyB entertainment channel available in the United Kingdom and Ireland.The channel first launched on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television, and is the fourth-oldest TV channel in the United Kingdom, behind BBC One , ITV and BBC Two...
. Dom Joly's Excellent Adventure involved him travelling back to Beirut for the first time since he left in the late 1980s, and embarking on a road trip through the Syrian Desert
Syrian Desert
The Syrian Desert , also known as the Syro-Arabian desert is a combination of steppe and true desert that is located in the northern Arabian Peninsula covering 200,000 square miles . also the desert is very rocky and flat...
to find a cave in which he had scrawled his name in as a child, that he re-discovered after much searching.
Dom Joly's Happy Hour
His next project for Sky One was a critically acclaimed spoof travel series supposedly investigating attitudes to alcohol around the world, entitled Dom Joly's Happy Hour, in which Joly teamed up with his friend, CanadianCanada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
digital artist Peter Wilkins
Peter Wilkins
Peter Wilkins is a British multimedia artist living in Newfoundland, Canada. He is best known for his kinetic portraits, in particular, 12 Kinetic Portraits of Canadian Writers. These works have been exhibited at The Rooms Provincial Gallery in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador and the entire...
. Together, they explored drinking habits around the world, travelling to the Southern United States
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. During the first documentary, the pair explored Miami drinking styles, met up with some hillbillies in the Appalachians
Appalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains #Whether the stressed vowel is or ,#Whether the "ch" is pronounced as a fricative or an affricate , and#Whether the final vowel is the monophthong or the diphthong .), often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians...
tasting moonshine
Moonshine
Moonshine is an illegally produced distilled beverage...
, and visited a gay cowboy
Cowboy
A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the vaquero traditions of northern Mexico and became a figure of...
bar in Atlanta before taking on the Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
right in Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
's dry counties.
They went on to visit Russia, trying 80% alcohol (by volume) homemade vodka
Vodka
Vodka , is a distilled beverage. It is composed primarily of water and ethanol with traces of impurities and flavorings. Vodka is made by the distillation of fermented substances such as grains, potatoes, or sometimes fruits....
known as Samogon. He explained, "(y)ou have an hour where you feel you can take on the world, then you black out. But because it’s almost pure alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....
, no hangover - sadly because I can’t remember it, I don’t know if it’s worth doing". They then visited Australia, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and Europe before ending the tour in India. It was described in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
as "a brilliantly surreal take on the tired format that is the TV travel show."
The programme included a lot more than just attempting to discover foreign drinking habits, for instance, in Russia Dom received a haircut from a nude woman and both he and Wilkins performed their own version of a morris dance
Morris dance
Morris dance is a form of English folk dance usually accompanied by music. It is based on rhythmic stepping and the execution of choreographed figures by a group of dancers. Implements such as sticks, swords, handkerchiefs and bells may also be wielded by the dancers...
before a bemused dance academy. Another instance found them catching crocodiles in Australia.
"The premise of investigating alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....
is ridiculous," Joly admitted during an interview. "I wanted an excuse to travel the world
World
World is a common name for the whole of human civilization, specifically human experience, history, or the human condition in general, worldwide, i.e. anywhere on Earth....
, but they (Sky TV
British Sky Broadcasting
British Sky Broadcasting Group plc is a satellite broadcasting, broadband and telephony services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with operations in the United Kingdom and the Ireland....
) wanted a focal point. So I said as a joke: 'Well, I quite like drinking.' And they went, 'Fantastic, that’s brilliant!'"
The DVD was released on 1 October 2007.
The Complainers
Dom Joly has appeared inThe Complainers for Channel Five in the UK. The show, in Joly's words- "intends to try and get a little revenge for the ordinary Brit on the morons, bureaucrats, health and safety officers, traffic wardens, timewasters that make all our lives a daily hell."Made In Britain
In 2009, Joly fronted a show titled Made In Britain, shown on the Blighty channel in the UK. In the show Joly goes on a road-trip around the UK looking at what is still made there after his house is emptied of everything not made in Britain.Journalism
Joly writes for various publications. He was alleged to be the writer of a spoof column in The IndependentThe Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
called "Cooper Brown: He's out there." The column is published as the work of an American character called Cooper Brown
Cooper Brown
Cooper Brown is the columnist-protagonist of a regular column, a spoof, entitled "He's out There" in The Independent newspaper. The columnist presents himself as a highly outspoken American former movie producer, resident in London....
and revolves around his putative adventures as "a garrulous American showbiz type".
His real-life eclectic weekly column for the Independent on Sunday covers subjects as varied as Middle East politics and fifty-foot chickens. Joly also writes a weekly column on the "Weird World of Sport" for The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
Sports supplement on Mondays.
He is also a regular travel writer for The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
and has written about trips to Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
, Dominica
Dominica
Dominica , officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island nation in the Lesser Antilles region of the Caribbean Sea, south-southeast of Guadeloupe and northwest of Martinique. Its size is and the highest point in the country is Morne Diablotins, which has an elevation of . The Commonwealth...
, Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, Northern California
Northern California
Northern California is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The San Francisco Bay Area , and Sacramento as well as its metropolitan area are the main population centers...
, Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Miami, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Maldives
Maldives
The Maldives , , officially Republic of Maldives , also referred to as the Maldive Islands, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean formed by a double chain of twenty-six atolls oriented north-south off India's Lakshadweep islands, between Minicoy Island and...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, Zanzibar
Zanzibar
Zanzibar ,Persian: زنگبار, from suffix bār: "coast" and Zangi: "bruin" ; is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja , and Pemba...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, Malaysia, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
, Corsica
Corsica
Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...
, Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
, North Korea
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
, Oman
Oman
Oman , officially called the Sultanate of Oman , is an Arab state in southwest Asia on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by the United Arab Emirates to the northwest, Saudi Arabia to the west, and Yemen to the southwest. The coast is formed by the Arabian Sea on the...
, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
, Newfoundland, Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
, Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
, Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
, Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. At the end of 2006 readers of the paper were asked to vote on where Joly would go every week. He travelled the globe performing various adrenaline sports whilst making a weekly podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
from South Africa, Spain, The Arctic Circle, Paris and Fort William. He has also written for Esquire Magazine, GQ, The Mail on Sunday
The Mail on Sunday
The Mail on Sunday is a British conservative newspaper, currently published in a tabloid format. First published in 1982 by Lord Rothermere, it became Britain's biggest-selling Sunday newspaper following the closing of The News of the World in July 2011...
, The London Evening Standard, FHM
FHM
FHM, originally published as For Him Magazine, is an international monthly men's lifestyle magazine.- History :The magazine began publication in 1985 in the United Kingdom under the name For Him and changed its title to FHM in 1994 when Emap Consumer Media bought the magazine, although the full For...
, The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
and The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
.
In September 2008 Joly won an award at the 2008 Canada Media Awards for "Best Travel Piece" - the piece was written for the Mail on Sunday about a trip to Muskoka in Canada.
Joly wrote a spoof autobiography called Look At Me, Look At Me!, published by Bloomsbury in 2004. Joly's second book, Letters To My Golf Club, is a book of humorous letters and correspondences sent to golf clubs around the world published by Transworld Publishing on 8 October 2007.
Joly published a humor travel book called The Dark Tourist: Sightseeing in the World's Most Unlikely Holiday Destinations (2010) which is about dark tourism
Dark tourism
Dark tourism is tourism involving travel to sites associated with death and suffering. Thanatourism, derived from the Ancient Greek word thanatos for the personification of death, is associated with dark tourism but refers more specifically to violent death; it is used in fewer contexts than the...
. In the book Joly travels to places like Chernobyl (which he visited on 4 May 2009), Lebanon, North Korea and Iran among others, places that witnessed great tragedy and death. It was commissioned by Simon and Schuster and published on September 2, 2010 in the UK.
Joly recently starred in the ITV2 reality programme Deadline with Janet Street Porter where he had to become a paparazzo. Amongst other highlights he was punched by Lily Allen
Lily Allen
Lily Rose Beatrice Cooper , better known as Lily Allen, is an English recording artist and fashion designer. She is the daughter of actor and musician Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen. In her teenage years, her musical tastes evolved from glam rock to alternative...
, hit over the head with a guitar by Pete Doherty
Pete Doherty
Peter Doherty is an English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist. He is best known musically for being co-frontman of The Libertines, which he reformed with Carl Barât in 2010. His other musical project is indie band Babyshambles...
, called a "persistent little fat cunt flap" by Pierce Brosnan
Pierce Brosnan
Pierce Brendan Brosnan, OBE is an Irish actor, film producer and environmentalist. After leaving school at 16, Brosnan began training in commercial illustration, but trained at the Drama Centre in London for three years...
and snorted vodka with Ingrid Tarrant
Ingrid Tarrant
Ingrid Dupre Tarrant is an English broadcaster and former wife of Chris Tarrant. She was educated at St Margaret's School, Bushey and has presented such programmes as TV Mail, Wish You Were Here? and This Morning...
.
Joly was a "special correspondent" for the Independent at the Beijing Olympics. He says: "it's always been an ambition to be a foreign correspondent and this is as close as I'll ever get." While in Beijing he also appeared daily on the "Drive" programme on Five Live with Peter Allen.
Political career
In the 1997 UK general electionUnited Kingdom general election, 1997
The United Kingdom general election, 1997 was held on 1 May 1997, more than five years after the previous election on 9 April 1992, to elect 659 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party ended its 18 years in opposition under the leadership of Tony Blair, and won the general...
Joly formed the Teddy Bear Alliance ("Mr Blair, where do you stand on fleas?") and changed his name to Edward 'Teddy' Bear (a reference to "Edward Bear", better known as Winnie-the-Pooh
Winnie-the-Pooh
Winnie-the-Pooh, also called Pooh Bear, is a fictional anthropomorphic bear created by A. A. Milne. The first collection of stories about the character was the book Winnie-the-Pooh , and this was followed by The House at Pooh Corner...
). He stood in Kensington and Chelsea against Alan Clark
Alan Clark
Alan Kenneth Mackenzie Clark was a British Conservative MP and diarist. He served as a junior minister in Margaret Thatcher's governments at the Departments of Employment, Trade, and Defence, and became a privy counsellor in 1991...
. Hiring out hundreds of teddy bear costumes, he staged mock protests at Westminster
Palace of Westminster
The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace, is the meeting place of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons...
and came fifth out of nine candidates, receiving 218 votes (0.6%). The Alliance was not registered as a political party under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.
Music
Joly was the singer in an Indie band called Hang David in the early Nineties. He was a Goth and said that he looked more like Robert SmithRobert Smith (musician)
Robert James Smith is an English musician. He is the lead singer, guitar player and principal songwriter of the rock band The Cure, and its only constant member since its founding in 1976...
than Robert Smith. Joly personally selects all the soundtracks for his TV shows. All three soundtracks albums for Trigger Happy TV
Trigger Happy TV
Trigger Happy TV was a hidden camera/practical joke reality television program. The original British edition of the show, produced by Absolutely Productions, starred Dom Joly and ran for two series on the British television channel Channel 4 from 2000 until 2002...
were huge commercial hits. He has also directed a couple of music videos.
Ian Brown
Ian Brown
Ian George Brown is an English musician, best known as the lead singer of the alternative rock band The Stone Roses, which broke up in 1996 but are confirmed to reunite in 2012. Since the break-up of the Stone Roses he has pursued a solo career...
- Golden Gaze
Golden Gaze
"Golden Gaze" is the third single from Ian Brown’s second solo album, Golden Greats. Released on June 5, 2000, it placed #29 on the UK Singles Chart.The track was influenced by the Stevie Wonder song, “Golden Lady” from his Innervisions album...
, in which Joly made the whole video in one take, making Brown run through the streets of London being chased by gorillas, frog-men and ninjas before he took refuge in the Prince Charles Cinema.
WigWam
WigWam
WigWam are a duo comprising Alex James, the bassist from Blur and vocalist Betty Boo. With record producer Ben Hillier, and former Boo collaborators Beatmasters, WigWam were said to be creating an album which they described as "experimental yet accessible 21st century pop"...
, the duo consisting of Betty Boo
Betty Boo
Alison Moira Clarkson better known as Betty Boo, is an English singer, songwriter and pop-rap artist...
and Alex James
Alex James (musician)
Professionally known as Alex James is an English musician, songwriter, journalist and cheesemaker. He is best known as the bass player and occasional vocalist of band Blur...
from Blur
Blur (band)
Blur is an English alternative rock band. Formed in London in 1989 as Seymour, the group consists of singer Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree. Blur's debut album Leisure incorporated the sounds of Madchester and shoegazing...
asked Joly to direct their first single. Joly decided to pay a weird homage to The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
concert on a roof and filmed the band performing in cat costumes on the roof of a building opposite the Groucho Club in Soho.
Radio
In June 2008, Joly became the co-star of the Cobra Pubcast, a podcast from British beer company Cobra BeerCobra Beer
Cobra Beers main product is an extra-smooth premium beer with an alcohol strength of 5% volume. The beer was founded in 1989 by Karan Bilimoria, who thought that Britain needed a smoother, less gassy lager, which would appeal to both ale drinkers and lager drinkers alike...
that he hosted with humorist Danny Wallace.
Joly also frequently sits in for Gabby Logan
Gabby Logan
Gabby Logan is a television presenter and radio presenter, as well as a former Wales international gymnast. She currently hosts programmes for BBC Sport, mainly focusing on football.- Early life :...
on her Sunday Five Live show. Joly was also a roving reporter for Five Live at both the Beijing Olympics and Wimbledon 2009
2009 Wimbledon Championships
The 2009 Wimbledon Championships took place on the outdoor grass courts at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London, from Monday 22 June through to Sunday 5 July 2009...
.
Future projects
Joly is developing a hidden-camera movie with his old sidekick, Sam Cadman, tentatively called War of the Flea as well as having written a screenplay for a movie based on the adventures of Cooper BrownCooper Brown
Cooper Brown is the columnist-protagonist of a regular column, a spoof, entitled "He's out There" in The Independent newspaper. The columnist presents himself as a highly outspoken American former movie producer, resident in London....
.
Joly has also talked about plans for a television show based on popular social networking site Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
, visiting random people who have added him as a 'friend'. Joly would only accept friend requests if he has any type of connection with them.
In June 2009, it was reported that Joly had completed a script for "a Trigger Happy movie" set in the US.
In 2010, Joly entered the jungle in the middle of the tenth series of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! UK. He finished in 4th place.
Personal life
Joly is married to Stacey Joly (née MacDougall), a Canadian graphic designGraphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...
er. The couple have a daughter, Parker (born 2000) and son Jackson (born 2004).
Having lived in Notting Hill
Notting Hill
Notting Hill is an area in London, England, close to the north-western corner of Kensington Gardens, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea...
before their children were born, Joly and his wife bought a property in the Cotswolds
Cotswolds
The Cotswolds are a range of hills in west-central England, sometimes called the Heart of England, an area across and long. The area has been designated as the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty...
. They sold his flat to Salman Rushdie and the family now live near Cirencester
Cirencester
Cirencester is a market town in east Gloucestershire, England, 93 miles west northwest of London. Cirencester lies on the River Churn, a tributary of the River Thames, and is the largest town in the Cotswold District. It is the home of the Royal Agricultural College, the oldest agricultural...
.
While they were on holiday in Canada, the house was affected by sewage
Sewage
Sewage is water-carried waste, in solution or suspension, that is intended to be removed from a community. Also known as wastewater, it is more than 99% water and is characterized by volume or rate of flow, physical condition, chemical constituents and the bacteriological organisms that it contains...
from the 2007 UK floods.
In March 2011 Dom Joly announced his first live show, Welcome to Wherever I am, at the Underbelly in London on April 30th.