About
Stephen Grant is one of the UK’s funniest, hardest working and most respected comedians. Whether entertaining stag and hen parties, voicing animations, warming up TV audiences, presenting radio shows or hosting corporate award nights Stephen never fails to pull in the laughs.
Stephen is a multi-award winning MC and the resident compere at Krater Comedy Club in Brighton. He performs at clubs and corporate events all over the UK and on the international circuit and has taken six critically acclaimed shows to the Edinburgh Fringe since 2003.
A repeat award winner of Best UK Compere, Grant is the host of the Krater Comedy Club at Komedia, is a regular headliner at The Comedy Store in Leicester Square.
Stephen still finds the time to headline and MC gigs all over the country, as well as being a regular guest on The Cutting Edge at The Comedy Store, deputising presenter on BBC Southern Counties Radio, warming up and performing on some of the biggest comedy shows on TV. His speed and dynamism create a magical energy which has audiences rapt and hanging onto his every word. It is this that led Stephen to writing for Rob Beckett on Mock the Week and for writing for Russell Kane on Live at the Electric as well as for Lee Nelson’s Well Good Show for Avalon TV and Seann Walsh for Channel 4’s Stand Up For The Week.
Watch Stephen Grant: Taken for Granted
With the assured confidence of a seasoned stand-up grand master, Stephen Grant leads his audience through a riotous cavalcade of comedy exasperated observations. Taken for Granted cuts to the hilarious heart of modern concerns such as ageing, class-warfare, and childhood obesity, and also features the world’s only known computer warm-up act.
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Bio
Born in Brighton and widely regarded within the comedy industry as one of the best comperes on the UK circuit, Stephen Grant plays host to over 900 people at his own club every weekend in Brighton. His talents have also seen him perform extended shows across the country.
At age 13, Stephen released his first ever computer game Dieste, written on the ZX Spectrum. It was an adventure game set in the future. His second game, Blowtorch Baby Bloodbath, showed a perverse sense of humour that could well have been an indication of things to come. By the age of 16 Stephen had written 5 full size commercial programs and was contributing to national computer magazines.
No serious performing followed until aged 17 and doing A levels, Stephen linked up with his next door neighbour called Robin Driscoll, who was making a small living as the writer on Alas Smith & Jones. Robin encouraged Stephen to take his written ideas back to the stage, and with the help of a friend, put on a half hour show called ‘Pythonesque’, with original sketches written in the style of the Monty Python team. An isolated one-off success, Stephen was to not perform live again after this for another 6 years. In that time, Robin came up with an idea for a character called Mr Bean and moved out and up on the enormous success that followed.
During that period, Stephen developed his professional career as a programmer and software designer, before his more interpersonal talents pushed him into the world of consultancy and project management.
In late 1996, aged 23, the desire to go back to a stage started to kick in, and Stephen made a new years resolution in 1997 to try to get up on the stage and attempt to perform stand up comedy. In February 1997 at the Good Companions pub in Brighton, Stephen made his debut solo appearance on stage to an audience of 40, half of which were friends who had been subjected to ‘living room auditions’ over the previous 6 weeks. Despite the overriding feeling of nausea throughout (for the performer, not the crowd), it went surprisingly well. This encouraged him to go back. And back. And back. Playing only the one venue, Stephen wrote ten minutes new material every week, and a lot of this is still in his set today.
In 1998 he made his Edinburgh debut to sell out audiences at the Pleasance theatre, where he was the main subject of the 6 part TV series Edinburgh or Bust. In 2003 he returned with “Route 1”, which achieved critical acclaim as one of the few five star reviews awarded that festival.
A large proportion of Stephen’s work in TV and radio. He was the main comedy writer for Radio 1’s daytime programming from 1999 to 2003 and has written for everyone there from Zoe Ball to John Peel. Additionally, Stephen took on the mantle of writing BBC1 Saturday flagship show Live & Kicking in early 2001. On TV he has written and presented the BBC2 peak time documentaries “Stephen Grant’s Journey to the Wasteland”. “The 29 Steps” and “The Estate We’re In”. More recently his programs “The Brighton Festival” and “Noise” were broadcast on BBC1.
As a writer, Stephen Grant is a columnist for Sussex Life, Live For Now and the very popular car industry website Sniff Petrol. Additionally, he’s the occasional TV reviewer for the Sunday Mirror. He also does the TV warm up for many leading network comedy shows.