Sean Hughes (comedian)

Sean Hughes (born John Hughes, 10 November 1965) is a British-Irish stand-up comedian, writer and actor.

Career

Hughes was born in London, but spent most of his youth in Firhouse, Dublin. In 1987 he began appearing at the Comedy Store, and with his show, A One Night Stand With Sean Hughes he won the prestigious Perrier Comedy Award.

He marked his 30th birthday with the Sean Hughes Is Thirty Somehow tour, which was broadcast on Channel 4, in 1995. Hughes returned to stand-up, touring the UK and Australia in 2007 with his show, The Right Side of Wrong.

As well as comedy, he has also written collections of prose and poetry and worked on a number of films. He also presented weekend radio shows on the BBC's London radio station BBC GLR, and in 2002 joined BBC 6 Music, presenting the Sunday morning programme. He left the station a year after its launch, proclaiming it had turned into everything he had wanted it to be. He has also written two novels, The Detainees (1998) and It's What He Would Have Wanted (2000).

A close friend of the late American comedian Bill Hicks, Hughes wrote the foreword to Cynthia True's biography, American Scream. The Bill Hicks Story. Often compared to one another[citation needed], Hughes wrote about Hicks, "being a genius is a heavy burden and he's the only one I'm ever likely to meet. I still miss you Bill."

Film and television

Hughes had a small role in the 1991 film The Commitments, playing a record producer.

In 1992 he had his own TV show, Sean's Show, ostensibly set in his own home. It received a nomination for the 1992 British Comedy Award for Best Channel 4 Sitcom. Series one of Sean's Show has been released on DVD by Channel 4. He later recorded a series of brief programmes called Sean's Shorts, in which he toured England, visiting many of the country's towns and cities, visiting local places of interest and meeting local people. From 1996 to 2002 he was a team captain on the BBC 2 comedy quiz show Never Mind The Buzzcocks, alongside Phill Jupitus and Mark Lamarr. He can be seen during Terrorvision's music video for their single Tequila from 1999.

He appeared in the 2010 Edinburgh Fringe.

In ITV's series The Last Detective, featuring "Dangerous" Davies, Hughes plays his friend, the perpetually unemployed and well-read "Mod Lewis" (he spends all his time at the library to save on heating). He played Eileen Grimshaw's love interest Pat in the British soap Coronation Street.

Hughes voices the part of Finbar the Shark, one of a number of plastic bath toys which come to life when no-one is watching in the children's TV series Rubbadubbers, shown on the BBC's 'CBeebies' channel in the UK for pre-school children.

He played Sergeant Lake in the ITV Agatha Christie's Marple production of They Do It with Mirrors, which was broadcast on 1 January 2010.

Hughes played "Brendan" in the 2010 British film version of Tony Hawks' best selling book, Round Ireland with a Fridge that was released in September 2010 and on DVD on 8 November 2010.

External links

• Sean Hughes at the Internet Movie Database
• Sean Hughes on Chortle