Rich Hall

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Rich Hall

Tower Theatre
Upper Darby, PA - May 3rd, 1986
Born June 10, 1954 (1954-06-10) (age 55)
Alexandria, Virginia, USA
Occupation Stand-up comedian

Rich Hall (born 10 June 1954 in Alexandria, Virginia)[1] is an American comedian and writer. He was a writer and performer on the sketch comedy TV series Fridays, Not Necessarily the News, and Saturday Night Live. He has appeared several times on the American talk shows Late Show with David Letterman, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien and on British comedy panel shows QI, 8 out of 10 cats, Have I Got News for You and Never Mind the Buzzcocks. He has also appeared on the British stand-up comedy show Live at the Apollo.

In 1986, he had his own Showtime channel special, Vanishing America, which was turned into a book with the same title. He hosted a talk show during The Comedy Channel's 1990-1991 season, entitled Rich Hall's Onion World.

Rich Hall coined the term "sniglet" (a word that "doesn't appear in the dictionary, but should"), and collected and published several volumes of books of them. Matt Groening has described him as the inspiration for Moe Szyslak from The Simpsons. [2]

He is part Cherokee [3], and lives in London with his wife Karen and their daughter, Dixie Rae.[1]

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[edit] United Kingdom

Outside of his homeland, Hall has also achieved popularity in the United Kingdom, where he has lived off and on for twenty-three years. He spends part of his time during the off-seasons writing plays in the United States where he has a small Ranch just outside Livingston, Montana. The rest of the time is spent in London where he owns a flat. Hall is a regular guest on popular BBC panel quiz shows. In 2000, he won the Perrier Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe, in the guise of his own grizzled uncle, Otis Lee Crenshaw, the much-convicted country music singer. He has released several albums and a concert movie as this character. In 2004, he published a book of the man's memoirs, entitled Otis Lee Crenshaw: I Blame Society, and in 2007 he finished a screenplay for a film based on the book, written for the director Mel Smith.[4]

In 2004, he appeared as part of Jack Dee's Jack Dee Live at the Apollo series to perform a stand-up routine. The appearance achieved some cult status due to his line of jokes about Tom Cruise, and the perceivable similarities between many of his roles.

In 2006, Hall wrote and acted in the play Levelland at the Edinburgh Festival.

He has had three BBC TV series of his own: Rich Hall's Badly Funded Think Tank, Rich Hall's Fishing Show in 2003, and Rich Hall's Cattle Drive in 2006, as well as a one off programme about the 2004 American Presidential Elections, Rich Hall's Election Special.

He regularly appears as a guest on comedy panel game programmes, such as Have I Got News for You, QI[5], 8 out of 10 Cats and Never Mind the Buzzcocks[6][7] to major critical acclaim. To fans of the QI series, he is known as the game's all-time victory leader with seven wins on the show. He also appeared on the BBC Two programme Top Gear, where he successfully managed to make a song about a Rover 25 car, much to the enjoyment of the audience and the host, Jeremy Clarkson. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Hall was entrusted with the task of responding to the tragedy on the first subsequent edition of Have I Got News for You.

In 2007, he returned to the Fringe with his second play, Best Western, which he wrote and directed.

In 2008 he returned to television with a 90-minute documentary about Westerns, Rich Hall's How the West Was Lost, broadcast on BBC Four. In November of the same year he also appeared in the first episode of the new series of Live at the Apollo on BBC One.

In 2009, he performed at the Edinburgh Festival in two shows, his solo stand up and also with long time collaborator Mike Wilmot and Montana-based actor Tim Williams in a new play entitled "Campfire Stories".

Also in 2008 Hall toured two stand-up shows around the UK: 'Rich Hall Autumn Tour 2008' played around 45 dates and he also went on the road as his alter-ego in a show entitled 'Otis Lee Crenshaw and Band' that listed Rich Hall as a 'special guest'. He subsequently toured a version of this show throughout the UK and Ireland in 2009, with long time sidekick Myron T Buttram (Guitarist and Pedal Steel player Rob Childs) and Lonesome Dave (Banjoist and Guitarist David Lindsay) appearing at the 2009 Adelaide Fringe festival, the Sydney Opera House, and the 2009 Melbourne Comedy festival. With the band renamed as "The Honky Tonk A**holes" and joined by Horst Furst II (Bassist Nigel Portman-Smith) and Drummer Mark Hewitt, his autumn 2009 tour included a performance at London's Hammersmith Apollo, which was recorded and released in November 2009 as a Live DVD.

[edit] Appearances

He made an Irish TV appearance as a guest on the fifth series of RTÉ's topical news comedy program, Don't Feed the Gondolas, and appears at the Kilkenny Cat Laughs comedy festival every year as well as the Galway comedy festival the last number of years. He has also performed at the West Belfast Festival / Feile an Phobail, one of the largest community festivals in Ireland, to a sell-out audience where he received widespread critical acclaim.

He has also achieved some popularity in Australia, regularly appearing at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and the Adelaide Fringe Festival, and also on Australian comedy panel shows, such as The Glass House and Spicks and Specks.

Rich appeared, albeit briefly, in the 2006 Cheap Seats (ESPNCL) episode titled "Steve Garvey Celebrity Skiing". He was also at the Garvey 1989 Celebrity Ski Classic.

[edit] Celebrities impersonated on SNL

[edit] Discography

  1. London Not Tennessee, with the Black Liars (2001)
  2. How Do We Do It? Volume! (2003)

[edit] Books

  1. 1984 Sniglets (Snig'Lit: Any Word That Doesn't Appear in the Dictionary, but Should), ISBN 0-02-012530-5
  2. 1985 More Sniglets: Any Word That Doesn't Appear in the Dictionary, but Should
  3. 1986 Unexplained Sniglets of the Universe
  4. 1986 Rich Hall's Vanishing America, ISBN 0-02-547480-4
  5. 1987 Angry Young Sniglets (1987)
  6. 1989 When Sniglets Ruled the Earth (1989)
  7. 1994 Self Help for the Bleak: Attaboy Therapy, ISBN 0-8431-3669-3
  8. 2002 Things Snowball, ISBN 0-349-11576-1
  9. 2004 Otis Lee Crenshaw: I Blame Society, ISBN 0-349-11818-3
  10. 2009 Magnificent Bastards, ISBN 0-349-11965-1

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b "Biography for Rich Hall (I)". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0356025/bio. Retrieved 2007-08-04. 
  2. ^ "The real life Moe". Ananova. http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2524692.html. Retrieved 2008-09-16. 
  3. ^ "QI Episode". http://www.freewebs.com/qitranscripts/212.htm. 
  4. ^ "Acclaimed Stand-up Comedian Rich Hall Makes Light of Life". 2007-02-28. http://www.thevisitor.co.uk/entertainment/Acclaimed-standup-comedian-Rich-Hall.2085832.jp. Retrieved 2008-07-17. 
  5. ^ "Filmography by TV series for Rich Hall (I): 'QI' (16 episodes)". IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0356025/filmoseries#tt0380136. Retrieved 2007-08-04. 
  6. ^ "Rich Hall, Amy Winehouse, Mike Peters, Fearne Cotton". Never Mind the Buzzcocks. BBC. 2004-03-08. No. 10, season 14.
  7. ^ "Rich Hall, Amy Winehouse, Mike Peters, Fearne Cotton". TV.com. http://www.tv.com/never-mind-the-buzzcocks/rich-hall-amy-winehouse-mike-peters-fearne-cotton/episode/315782/summary.html. Retrieved 2007-08-04. 

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Hall"
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