Matthew Holness
Encyclopedia
Matthew Holness is an English comedian
and actor from Whitstable
in Kent
. He attended Chaucer Technology School
in Canterbury
and read English
at Trinity Hall, Cambridge
, where he was vice-president of the Cambridge Footlights. As a member of The Footlights he was involved with and appeared in a number of shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in the mid nineties.
Before he was on television, he played Bob Fossil and was the first choice for the role, however contract limitations between Channel 4 (Garth Marenghi's Darkplace) and the BBC (Mighty Boosh) saw Rich Fulcher take the role permanently, in The Mighty Boosh stage show
. He is currently the only regular cast member (of six) from the TV version of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace
who has yet to feature in the TV version of The Mighty Boosh
. He is the only main character from Darkplace (of four) not to have appeared in The IT Crowd
.
Holness first appeared on television as a cast-member of the 2000 BBC Choice
TV series Bruiser
.
In 2000, Garth Marenghi's Fright Knight
, a stage show written by Holness and Richard Ayoade
, and starring Holness, Ayoade and Alice Lowe
, was nominated for the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Fringe
. The show was built around Holness's spoof
horror writer character Garth Marenghi
, with additional parts played by Ayoade and Lowe. The sequel to Fright Knight, Garth Marenghi's Netherhead
, won the Perrier Award the following year.
Garth Marenghi transferred to UK television in the 2004 Channel 4
horror comedy Garth Marenghi's Darkplace
. Despite critical acclaim and a cult following on the Internet
the series suffered from relatively low ratings, and Holness is perhaps better known by TV audiences for his cameo as Simon (the Computer Guy) in series two of The Office
. He played a similar character (among others) in the 2000 TV series Bruiser
.
From 2004, Holness played the regular character of Keith Bilk in the BBC Radio 4
series The Department
, written by Chris Addison
(series 1, 2), John Oliver
, and Andy Zaltzman
.
Holness's comedy character, Merriman Weir, a guitar-picking folk singer, has performed at small comedy clubs in London and around the UK. Merriman Weir has also appeared as a guest in the pilot episode of the Channel 4 comedy chat show Man to Man with Dean Learner
(2005) (then known as Deano's After Dark) where he was interviewed by Garth Marenghi's publicist Dean Learner
— a character created by Richard Ayoade
.
Following on from the above successful pilot show, Holness and Ayoade recorded a six-part series for Channel 4 entitled Man to Man with Dean Learner
in late May and early June at Teddington Studios
, which was broadcast on terrestrial television on Friday 20 October 2006 at 11.05pm on Channel 4 and continued for 6 weeks. Holness played Dean Learner's different guests in each episode (although the Merriman Weir episode was recorded first, it was the fourth one to be broadcast in the series).
In 2006 he appeared in the BBC Two
comedy programme Time Trumpet
.
In 2009 he appeared in the Channel 4
sitcom Free Agents
.
In 2010 he appeared in the Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant film Cemetery Junction.
In 2011 he played a minor role in the first episode of Friday Night Dinner
as 'Chris Parker'.
Holness has had several short stories published, including pieces in the anthology 'Phobic'; a collection of horror stories, and Black Static magazine.
He is also set to appear in Life's Too Short
in November, 2011. It is a sitcom written by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant and starring Warwick Davis
.
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 actor from Whitstable
Whitstable
Whitstable is a seaside town in Northeast Kent, Southeast England. It is approximately north of the city of Canterbury and approximately west of the seaside town of Herne Bay. It is part of the City of Canterbury district and has a population of about 30,000.Whitstable is famous for its oysters,...
in Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
. He attended Chaucer Technology School
Chaucer Technology School
Chaucer Technology School is a mixed ability comprehensive school, with designated technology status situated in Canterbury, Kent. It encompasses years 7 to 11 as well as a sixth form college...
in Canterbury
Canterbury
Canterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....
and read English
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
at Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Trinity Hall is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. It is the fifth-oldest college of the university, having been founded in 1350 by William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich.- Foundation :...
, where he was vice-president of the Cambridge Footlights. As a member of The Footlights he was involved with and appeared in a number of shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in the mid nineties.
Before he was on television, he played Bob Fossil and was the first choice for the role, however contract limitations between Channel 4 (Garth Marenghi's Darkplace) and the BBC (Mighty Boosh) saw Rich Fulcher take the role permanently, in The Mighty Boosh stage show
The Mighty Boosh (1998 stage show)
The Mighty Boosh was a 1998 stage show written and performed by Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt, along with Rich Fulcher. It was one of the first incarnations of what eventually became The Mighty Boosh.-Overview:...
. He is currently the only regular cast member (of six) from the TV version of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace is a British dark comedy show made for Channel 4 by Matthew Holness and Richard Ayoade. Following on from Garth Marenghi's Netherhead, which won the 2001 Perrier Awards, the show revolves around fictional horror author Garth Marenghi and his publisher Dean Learner...
who has yet to feature in the TV version of The Mighty Boosh
The Mighty Boosh
The Mighty Boosh is a British comedy troupe featuring comedians Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding. Developed from three stage shows and a six episode radio series, it has since spawned a total of twenty television episodes for BBC Three and two live tours of the UK, as well as two live shows in the...
. He is the only main character from Darkplace (of four) not to have appeared in The IT Crowd
The IT Crowd
The IT Crowd is a British sitcom by Channel 4, written by Graham Linehan, produced by Ash Atalla and starring Chris O'Dowd, Richard Ayoade, Katherine Parkinson and Matt Berry...
.
Holness first appeared on television as a cast-member of the 2000 BBC Choice
BBC Choice
BBC Choice was a BBC TV station which launched on 23 September 1998 and closed on 9 February 2003. It was the first British TV channel to broadcast exclusively in digital format, and was the first new channel from the BBC since BBC Two launched in 1964...
TV series Bruiser
Bruiser (TV series)
Bruiser was a TV comedy sketch show produced for BBC Choice. It premiered on 28 February 2000 and ran for six episodes ending on 15 March 2000. The main writers were David Mitchell and Robert Webb...
.
In 2000, Garth Marenghi's Fright Knight
Garth Marenghi's Fright Knight
Garth Marenghi's Fright Knight was a low-budget comedy horror stage show written by Matthew Holness and Richard Ayoade, and starring Holness, Ayoade and Alice Lowe...
, a stage show written by Holness and Richard Ayoade
Richard Ayoade
Richard Ellef Ayoade is a British comedian, actor, writer and director best known for his role as Maurice Moss in The IT Crowd.Ayoade was born an only child to a Norwegian mother, Dagny , and a Nigerian father, Layide Ade Laditi Ayoade. Ayoade studied at St...
, and starring Holness, Ayoade and Alice Lowe
Alice Lowe
Alice Lowe is an English actress and writer mainly in comedy, from the English Midlands.Lowe attended a comprehensive school and graduated from Cambridge University. She began her career co-devising and performing in surreal experimental theatre shows such as City Haunts, Snowbound and Progress In...
, was nominated for the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Fringe
Edinburgh Fringe
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world’s largest arts festival. Established in 1947 as an alternative to the Edinburgh International Festival, it takes place annually in Scotland's capital, in the month of August...
. The show was built around Holness's 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...
horror writer character Garth Marenghi
Garth Marenghi
Garth Marenghi is a fictional horror author and actor, created by English comedians Matthew Holness and Richard Ayoade, and played by Holness. To date, the character has appeared in two stage shows, the Perrier Award-nominated Garth Marenghi's Fright Knight and Perrier Award-winning Garth...
, with additional parts played by Ayoade and Lowe. The sequel to Fright Knight, Garth Marenghi's Netherhead
Garth Marenghi's Netherhead
Garth Marenghi's Netherhead was a low-budget comedy horror stage show written by Matthew Holness and Richard Ayoade, and starring Holness, Ayoade and Alice Lowe...
, won the Perrier Award the following year.
Garth Marenghi transferred to UK television in the 2004 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...
horror comedy Garth Marenghi's Darkplace
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace is a British dark comedy show made for Channel 4 by Matthew Holness and Richard Ayoade. Following on from Garth Marenghi's Netherhead, which won the 2001 Perrier Awards, the show revolves around fictional horror author Garth Marenghi and his publisher Dean Learner...
. Despite critical acclaim and a cult following on the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
the series suffered from relatively low ratings, and Holness is perhaps better known by TV audiences for his cameo as Simon (the Computer Guy) in series two of The Office
The Office (UK TV series)
The Office is a British sitcom television series that was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on 9 July 2001. Created, written, and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the programme is about the day-to-day lives of office employees in the Slough branch of the fictitious...
. He played a similar character (among others) in the 2000 TV series Bruiser
Bruiser (TV series)
Bruiser was a TV comedy sketch show produced for BBC Choice. It premiered on 28 February 2000 and ran for six episodes ending on 15 March 2000. The main writers were David Mitchell and Robert Webb...
.
From 2004, Holness played the regular character of Keith Bilk in the BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
series The Department
The Department
The Department is a satirical comedy on BBC Radio 4 about a secret organisation with the power to influence every aspect of your life.Chris Addison, John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman star as Research Team 32, an eccentric three-man think-tank with the brief to brainstorm new ideas on solving society's...
, written by Chris Addison
Chris Addison
Chris Addison is an English stand-up comedian, writer and actor. He is known for his lecture-style comedy shows, two of which he later adapted for BBC Radio 4...
(series 1, 2), John Oliver
John Oliver (comedian)
John Oliver is a British stand-up comedian, actor, and writer. He is best known for his work on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, for which he won an Emmy in 2009. He also plays a recurring character, Professor Ian Duncan, on the television series Community...
, and Andy Zaltzman
Andy Zaltzman
Andrew "Andy" Zaltzman is a British comedian and author who largely focuses on political material. He has worked extensively with John Oliver; their work together includes Political Animal, The Department and The Bugle.-Early life:...
.
Holness's comedy character, Merriman Weir, a guitar-picking folk singer, has performed at small comedy clubs in London and around the UK. Merriman Weir has also appeared as a guest in the pilot episode of the Channel 4 comedy chat show Man to Man with Dean Learner
Man to Man with Dean Learner
Man to Man with Dean Learner is a British comedy chat show that was first broadcast on Channel 4 on October 20, 2006 and released on DVD on September 3, 2007...
(2005) (then known as Deano's After Dark) where he was interviewed by Garth Marenghi's publicist Dean Learner
Dean Learner
Dean Learner is a fictional character created and performed by British comedian Richard Ayoade in stage shows and television shows. Learner is a famous publisher, mostly of pornography, but also of the books of the fictional horror writer, Garth Marenghi .Ayoade first played Learner in the...
— a character created by Richard Ayoade
Richard Ayoade
Richard Ellef Ayoade is a British comedian, actor, writer and director best known for his role as Maurice Moss in The IT Crowd.Ayoade was born an only child to a Norwegian mother, Dagny , and a Nigerian father, Layide Ade Laditi Ayoade. Ayoade studied at St...
.
Following on from the above successful pilot show, Holness and Ayoade recorded a six-part series for Channel 4 entitled Man to Man with Dean Learner
Man to Man with Dean Learner
Man to Man with Dean Learner is a British comedy chat show that was first broadcast on Channel 4 on October 20, 2006 and released on DVD on September 3, 2007...
in late May and early June at Teddington Studios
Teddington Studios
Teddington Studios is a large British television studio complex located in Teddington, South-West London, providing studio facilities for programmes airing on BBC television, ITV, and Channel 4 along with others...
, which was broadcast on terrestrial television on Friday 20 October 2006 at 11.05pm on Channel 4 and continued for 6 weeks. Holness played Dean Learner's different guests in each episode (although the Merriman Weir episode was recorded first, it was the fourth one to be broadcast in the series).
In 2006 he appeared in the BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
comedy programme Time Trumpet
Time Trumpet
Time Trumpet is a six-episode satirical television comedy series which aired on BBC Two in 2006. The series was written by Armando Iannucci, Roger Drew and Will Smith in a similar manner to Iannucci's earlier one-off programmes 2004: The Stupid Version and Clinton: His Struggle with...
.
In 2009 he appeared in the 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...
sitcom Free Agents
Free Agents
Free Agents is a romantic black comedy starring Stephen 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 4 episodes aired.-Plot:Alex works for CMA, a...
.
In 2010 he appeared in the Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant film Cemetery Junction.
In 2011 he played a minor role in the first episode of Friday Night Dinner
Friday Night Dinner
Friday Night Dinner is a British television sitcom written by Robert Popper and starring Tamsin Greig, Paul Ritter, Simon Bird, Tom Rosenthal and Mark Heap. The first series aired from February 2011 on Channel 4. A second series has been commissioned by Channel 4. The series began airing in the U.S...
as 'Chris Parker'.
Holness has had several short stories published, including pieces in the anthology 'Phobic'; a collection of horror stories, and Black Static magazine.
He is also set to appear in Life's Too Short
Life's Too Short
Life's Too Short is an observational sitcom series, created and written by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, from an idea by Warwick Davis, and is described by Gervais as being about "the life of a showbiz dwarf", with Davis playing a fictionalised version of himself. Gervais and Merchant appear...
in November, 2011. It is a sitcom written by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant and starring Warwick Davis
Warwick Davis
Warwick Ashley Davis is an English actor. He is most notable for playing the title characters in Willow and the Leprechaun film series, as well as for his roles in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and the Harry Potter movies. Davis currently stars in the sitcom Life's Too Short, written...
.
TV
| Year | Programme | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Bruiser Bruiser (TV series) Bruiser was a TV comedy sketch show produced for BBC Choice. It premiered on 28 February 2000 and ran for six episodes ending on 15 March 2000. The main writers were David Mitchell and Robert Webb... |
Various Roles | 6 Episodes Also Writer |
| 2002 | The Office The Office (UK TV series) The Office is a British sitcom television series that was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on 9 July 2001. Created, written, and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the programme is about the day-to-day lives of office employees in the Slough branch of the fictitious... |
Simon | 1 Episode |
| 2004 | Garth Marenghi's Darkplace Garth Marenghi's Darkplace Garth Marenghi's Darkplace is a British dark comedy show made for Channel 4 by Matthew Holness and Richard Ayoade. Following on from Garth Marenghi's Netherhead, which won the 2001 Perrier Awards, the show revolves around fictional horror author Garth Marenghi and his publisher Dean Learner... |
Garth Marenghi Garth Marenghi Garth Marenghi is a fictional horror author and actor, created by English comedians Matthew Holness and Richard Ayoade, and played by Holness. To date, the character has appeared in two stage shows, the Perrier Award-nominated Garth Marenghi's Fright Knight and Perrier Award-winning Garth... |
6 Episodes Also Writer |
| 2005 | Casanova Casanova (2005 TV serial) Casanova is a 2005 British television comedy drama serial, written by television scriptwriter Russell T Davies and directed by Sheree Folkson... |
Landlord | 1 Episode |
| 2006 | Time Trumpet Time Trumpet Time Trumpet is a six-episode satirical television comedy series which aired on BBC Two in 2006. The series was written by Armando Iannucci, Roger Drew and Will Smith in a similar manner to Iannucci's earlier one-off programmes 2004: The Stupid Version and Clinton: His Struggle with... |
Himself | 6 Episodes |
| Man to Man with Dean Learner Man to Man with Dean Learner Man to Man with Dean Learner is a British comedy chat show that was first broadcast on Channel 4 on October 20, 2006 and released on DVD on September 3, 2007... |
Various Roles | 6 Episodes Also Writer/Executive Producer |
|
| 2009 | Free Agents Free Agents Free Agents is a romantic black comedy starring Stephen 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 4 episodes aired.-Plot:Alex works for CMA, a... |
Dan Mackey | 6 Episodes |
| 2011 | Friday Night Dinner Friday Night Dinner Friday Night Dinner is a British television sitcom written by Robert Popper and starring Tamsin Greig, Paul Ritter, Simon Bird, Tom Rosenthal and Mark Heap. The first series aired from February 2011 on Channel 4. A second series has been commissioned by Channel 4. The series began airing in the U.S... |
Chris | 1 Episode |
Film
- Festival (2005) - Roger
- Cemetery JunctionCemetery Junction (film)Cemetery Junction is a coming-of-age comedy-drama film written and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 14 April 2010.-Plot:...
(2010) - The Band Leader - A Gun for George (2011) - Terry Finch