CityLife

Must see: Russell Howard

Russell Howard

THE last 18 months have been something of a whirlwind for comedian Russell Howard.

He’s been an award-winning stand-up for five years, even gaining an If.comedy nomination at Edinburgh in 2006. But it’s since joining panel show Mock The Week as a regular alongside Dara O’Briain, Frankie Boyle and Andy Parsons that his career has sky-rocketed.

So fast has his profile grown, in fact, that his last tour – Dingledodies – started off as a theatre show at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2008 and ended up in Wembley and the MEN Arena earlier this year, shifting more than 100,000 tickets during its extensive travels around the UK.

Success, of course, attracts more success, and Howard is no exception to this rule. This year, he got his own TV show – Russell Howard’s Good News – a topical stand-up affair involving Howard taking a characteristically chirpy look at the week’s funniest, strangest and darkest TV clips.

In that respect, he’s become the squeaky clean face of TV comedy that everyone at the Beeb hoped Russell Brand might become with the right nightly slot and financial incentive, until Sachsgate marked him out as a genuine loose cannon.

And as his portfolio draws in more and more fans, Howard has no choice but to start his new tour, Big Room And Belly Laughs, in arenas. The only questions is where he goes from here? Is stadium stand-up on the cards? CityLife hopes not...

MEN Arena, December 11, 2009, £20.