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Rhod Gilbert

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Not to be confused with Canadian ice-hockey player Rod Gilbert.

Rhod Gilbert
File:Rhod Gilbert 2009.jpg
Birth nameRhodri Gilbert
Born (1968-10-18) 18 October 1968 (age 55)
Carmarthen, Wales
MediumStand-up, television, radio
NationalityBritish
Years active2007-present
Subject(s)Wales
Notable works and rolesRoyal Variety Performance, Live At The Apollo, Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow
WebsiteMySpace Site

Rhodri "Rhod" Gilbert (born 18 October, 1968 in Carmarthen),[1] is a Welsh comedian who was nominated in 2005 for the Perrier Best Newcomer Award. In 2008, he was nominated for the main if.comedy (as the Edinburgh Comedy Awards were then branded).[2]

He appears on television and radio panel shows, has performed stand-up on the Royal Variety Performance, and hosts a weekly show on BBC Radio Wales.[1].

Early Life

Gilbert was born in Carmarthen, Wales in 1968 and studied languages at Exeter University.[1][3] For the first three weeks, such was his painful shyness that Gilbert was unable to eat with other students in the canteen or even make friends with the student in the next room.[4]

After graduating Gilbert travelled for a year and a half around Australia and Asia before returning to Carmarthen and working as an admin assistant for the Welsh Office.[4] After this he worked as a qualitative researcher for a number of different market research agencies in London.[1]

Career

Stand-up comedy

Gilbert got into professional comedy in 2002, after taking a comedy workshop course, but only "thanks to a girlfriend’s constant nagging".[4] Within 18 months, Gilbert had already won several different talent competitions.[3][5] and was nominated for the Perrier Newcomer award for his first solo show in 2005 at Edinburgh Fringe entitled 1984.[3] He has since performed worldwide, and was the first western comedian ever to perform in Taiwan.[6]

Many of Gilbert's stories are based around real life events, and his life in the wholly fictionalised village of Llanbobl. Originally invented to ensure an English heckler had nothing real to grasp on to,[7] it has since been geographically defined as being situated between "Wrexham and Holyhead, just north of Newtown, Powys," and a sort of "grown-up Thomas the Tank Engine" location.[2] Gilbert has described the number of audience members that come up to him at the end of shows, and say they have been to Llanbobl for holidays, and even that an English rugby union team "hammered" the Llanbobl team. Gilbert also admitted that he "may have accidentally sent the rugby player that told him on a 7 hour goose-chase" to come back to Llanbobl and meet him. In 2008, Gilbert wrote a sitcom around life in Llanbobl, which featured on BBC Radio 2. [7][8]

In his 2006 Edinburgh Fringe show Knocking on Heaven's Door, Gilbert told stories from his life, weighing up whether he would be admitted to heaven. His 2007 show, Who's Eaten Gilbert's Grape? saw Gilbert return to Llanbobl and pick up the story following the 1984 show narrative. His 2008 show, Rhod Gilbert and the Award-Winning Mince Pie, saw Gilbert question his sanity, his career and his life after suffering a mental breakdown brought on by the award-winning mince pie at a motorway services.

On 17 December 2008 he appeared at the 80th Royal Variety Performance.[9]

Gilbert's 2009/10 show, entitled Rhod Gilbert And The Cat That Looked Like Nicholas Lyndhurst, was announced on 5 April. Titled so that it would stop an obsessive fan in Kent, ironically named Alex Gilbert (no relation), bringing him presents. The show previewed around the UK in small venues, before being performed at the Edinburgh Festival. The show toured UK theatres from September 2009.[10]

On 18-19 June 2009, Gilbert made the last performances of Rhod Gilbert And The Award-Winning Mince Pie show at the Bloomsbury Theatre, which was recorded and released as a DVD on 16 November, 2009. [11] The DVD also contains several special features, including his infamous rant about lost luggage, outtakes from the performance and a mockumentary called Back To Llanbobl in which Gilbert shows the viewer around his fictional home town.

Television

Gilbert has appeared several times on the BBC2 shows Mock The Week, and Never Mind the Buzzcocks, even presenting one show in the programme's 23rd series, which aired in October 2009. He has also appeared as a guest on Channel 4's 8 Out of Ten Cats, and has used his comedy talents to write and narrate BBC Three's 2007 Goals Galore, Pranks Galore, Football Gaffes Galore and TV Gaffes Galore programmes.[1] He has also presented BBC 2W's, Rhod Gilbert's Teen Tribes, providing an insight into the teen tribal worlds of "Emos", "Chavs" and "Goths".

Gilbert was Paramount Comedy's continuity writer and announcer between September 2005 and April 2006, providing end-credit voice-overs for their peaktime programme schedule.

In December 2008 Gilbert was signed for an advertising campaign to further promote tourism in Wales,[3] and is now the official Voice Of Wales for the country's tourist-board. He also fronts the 2009 Visit Wales television advertising.[12]

In November 2008, Gilbert appeared on the BBC's Live at the Apollo as a guest. In December 2009, he hosted the show, introducing fellow comedian John Bishop. On 6 June 2009 Gilbert appeared as the headline act on Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow on BBC One, and he guested on 8 out of 10 Cats on 17 July 2009. He also provided voiceover material for the sketch show Walk on the Wild Side.

On 19th January 2010, Rhod Gilbert's Work Experience aired on BBC One Wales. The 4-part series saw Gilbert attempt a number of jobs including hairdresser, refuse collector, soldier and parent.[13] He appeared on 8 out of 10 Cats again on 19th February 2010

Radio

Gilbert fronts his own radio show "The Rhod Gilbert Radio Show", broadcast by BBC Radio Wales on Saturdays between 11am and 1pm,[14] alongside fellow Welsh stand-up comedian Chris Corcoran. In real life they also share a house.

In 2006, he hosted the BBC Radio Wales comedy panel show Jest a Minute, live from The Comedy Store in London.

The second series of Jest a Minute was recorded in late 2008 in Cardiff's Glee Club, hosted by Gilbert and featuring regular team captains Chris Corcoran and Lloyd Langford, and guests from the comedy circuit such as Professor Greg Davies, Lucy Porter and Jon Richardson.

Gilbert was also the host of BBC Radio 4's 4 Stands Up comedy series which aired in the Autumn of 2008, and has also appeared twice on Radio Four's Just a Minute, Radio 2's Does the Team Think?, and BBC Radio 4s Act your Age.

In December 2008, a pilot of his sitcom, Rhod Gilbert's Leaving Llanbobl was broadcast on BBC Radio Two; the sitcom was written and starred Rhod Gilbert and Greg Davies, with additional writing by Sian Harries. Lloyd Langford played Gilbert's amiable younger brother Emrys, Di Botcher played Brenda, a gossipy hairdresser, and Mike Hayward played Gilbert's father Gurnos. The show was produced by Ed Morrish. He has hinted in interviews that the sitcom is likely to move to TV when it is completed as he found that he was "seeing it" as he wrote it. [15]

Rhod has also made several appearances on the BBC Radio 4 comedy program The Unbelievable Truth. [16][17]

Awards

2002
  • Finalist in So You Think You're Funny.
2003
  • Winner of the Leicester Mercury comedian of the year as part of the Leicester Comedy Festival
  • Winner of the Paramount Gift Of The Gag competition
  • Chortle Award nominee for best new act
  • Winner of the BBC New Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe
  • Runner-up in the Hackney Empire New Act of The Year competition
  • Winner of the Metro and Jongleurs Spike Award for New Talent, South East
  • Winner of the National Talent Hunt at the York Festival[18]
2005
  • Chortle award for Best Breakthrough Act
  • Nominated for The List and Writers Guild Comedy Award for "Rhod Gilbert's 1984"
  • Perrier nominated for Best Newcomer for "Rhod Gilbert's 1984."
2006
2008
  • Nominated for the main IF.COM Eddies (formerly Perrier award) at the Edinburgh fringe for "Rhod Gilbert and the Award-winning Mince Pie"
  • Winner of the Time Out 'Comic of the Year'
  • Winner of the Time Out 'Best Show of the Year' for "Rhod Gilbert and the Award-winning Mince Pie"
  • Winner of the Time Out 'Breakthrough Act'
  • Nominated for the Celtic Media awards 'Best Radio Personality' for the "Rhod Gilbert Radio Show" on BBC Radio Wales
2009
  • Nominated for the Times/South Bank Show Awards, 'Breakthrough Act'
  • Winner of Chortle award for 'Best Headliner'
  • Winner of "Comics Comic" Chortle award
  • Nominated for the Chortle award for Best Show for "Rhod Gilbert and the Award-winning Mince Pie"

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "Rhod Gilbert". BBC Wales Arts. Retrieved 2009-11-23.
  2. ^ a b "Why the if.comedy shortlist is intriguingly short". The Times. 2008-08-24. Retrieved 2009-11-23.
  3. ^ a b c d Malcolm Hay (2006-10-16). "Rhod Gilbert: interview". TimeOut. Retrieved 2009-11-23.
  4. ^ a b c Correspondent (2010-01-16). "Would the real Rhod Gilbert please stand up". Western Mail. Retrieved 2010-01-19.
  5. ^ Rhod Gilbert's Biography : Chortle : The UK Comedy Guide
  6. ^ "Radio Wales - Rhod Gilbert". BBC.
  7. ^ a b "How Rhod is aiming to put Llanbobl on the map". Western Mail. 2008-03-24. Retrieved 2009-11-23.
  8. ^ "Rhod Gilbert's Leaving Llanbobl". BBC Radio 2. Retrieved 2009-11-23.
  9. ^ EABF - Entertainment Artistes' Benevolent Fund / 2008, London Palladium
  10. ^ Rhod Gilbert And The Cat That Looked Like Nicholas Lyndhurst
  11. ^ Play.com: Rhod Gilbert And The Award-Winning Mince Pie
  12. ^ Rhod Gilbert to front Wales tourism ads - suchsmallportions.com
  13. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/southwestwales/hi/tv_and_radio/newsid_8446000/8446936.stm
  14. ^ "Rhod Gilbert BBC radio show". BBC Radio Wales. Retrieved 2009-11-23.
  15. ^ Si Hawkins. "Circuit Training 7: The Word of Rhod". The British Comedy Guide. Retrieved 2010-01-07.
  16. ^ The Unbelievable Truth Series 4, Episode 1
  17. ^ The Unbelievable Truth Series 4, Episode 4
  18. ^ Comedy CV - The UK's largest collection of comedians biogs and photos
  19. ^ "Rhod Gilbert". Lancashire Telegraph.

External links

Template:Never Mind the Buzzcocks

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