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Alistair McGowan

Alistair McGowan

http://www.alistairmcgowan.co.uk

Alistair McGowan (born in Evesham on 24th November 1964) has worked in almost every area of showbusiness/the arts over his 27 year career. He is an impressionist, a stand-up comic, an actor, singer, and writer of sketches, articles, stage and radio plays but is still probably best known to British audiences for ´The Big Impression´ which was, for four years, one of BBC1´s top-rating comedy programmes - winning numerous awards, including a BAFTA.

On Sept 29th 2017, he releases, ´Alistair McGowan ; The Piano Album´ through Sony Classics. The album sees McGowan playing 17 short pieces of classical piano music by Satie, Grieg, Liszt, Field, Chopin, Mompou, Phillip Glass and Bach.

He will also be appearing in Under Milk Wood at The Watermill Theatre in Newbury in October and November 2017.

He continues to tour the country spasmodically as a stand-up comic (still delighting audiences with his ever-changing range of impressions).

In 2016, he wrote a one-man show called “Erik Satie´s-faction“ which he took to the Edinburgh Festival. An assembly of Satie´s words and music, it saw McGowan making his piano-playing debut and followed on from an appearance at The Proms (as Satie) in ´A Satie Cabaret´ alongside pianist Alexandre Tharaud.

He has worked extensively in theatre throughout his career and appeared in the West End in ´Art´, as The Emcee in ´Cabaret´, the Mikado in ´The Mikado´, Henry Higgins in ´Pygmalion´ (twice), The Dentist in ´Little Shop of Horrors´ (for which he received an Olivier nomination) and received widespread critical acclaim for his performance in the title role of Joathan Maitland´s controversial 2015 play, ´An Evening With Jimmy Saville.´

As an actor on television, he played Piero de Medici in ´Leonardo´ for CBBC and took the lead lead role in BBC1´s ´Mayo´ (co-writing several episodes) and is fondly remembered as Spock in Tim Firth´s ground-breaking ´Preston Front´..

He has also appeared on the big screen as Nico in ´Driving Aphrodite´ with Nia Vardalos and Richard Dreyfuss.

He has been a regular on Radio 4 comedies and dramas throughout his career and has played Boris Johnson, Alan Bennett and Richard Briers in 3 different 2-hander plays in the last few years and in 2016 played all 48 characters in ´Munchausen´.

´He wrote the play ´Timing´ (nominated for ´Best New Comedy´ at the whatsonstage.com awards), the radio plays ´Three Pieces In The Shape of a Pear´ about Erik Satie (Radio 4 - Listen Here:), ´The Peregrinations of a Most Musical Irishman (about composer and pianist John Field), ´The ´B´ Word´ (about the fraught first production of George Bernard Shaw´s ´Pygmalion´) and the book ´How To Wean Your Man Off Football´ with former comedy partner, Ronni Ancona. He has also fronted documentaries on Radio 4 about two of his favourite composers - Satie and Field.

He is also fondly remembered by football fans, players and managers of a certain age for his groundbreaking ´Football Backchat´ Videos which made his name in the mid-1990s.

He has directed Noel Coward´s ´Semi-Monde´ at The Guidhall School of Music and Drama and ´The Mikado´ and ´Pirates of Penzance´ for Raymond Gubbay. His love of classical music has also seen him introduce ´live´ concerts for Radio 3 and twice feature as a guest on Radio 3´s ´Essential Classsics´.

He presented ITV1´s doomed sports comedy show ´You Cannot Be Serious´ and has also featured on ´Bake Off For Comic Relief´,´Who Do You Think You Are´, ´Mock The Week´, ´Live At The Apollo´, is a ´Pointless Celebrities´ winner, presents occcasional pieces on ´The One Show´ and began his career by providing voices for the iconic ´Spitting Image´.