Tim Vine

Infobox Comedian


name = Tim Vine
caption = Tim Vine in "The Punslinger"
birth_date = birth date and age|1967|3|4|df=yes
birth_place = Cheam, Surrey
nationality = British
medium = Stand-up comedy, television
website = [http://www.timvine.com www.timvine.com]

Tim Vine (born March 4, 1967 in Cheam, Surrey) is an English actor and stand-up comedian and is the brother of Jeremy Vine, the British television journalist and presenter on BBC Radio 2.

Career

His stand-up act consists primarily of a series of quick-fire one-liners and puns. On 7 October 2004 Vine broke the Guinness World Record for the most jokes told in an hour with 499, beating the previous record of 362. Each joke told by Vine had to get a laugh from the paying audience to count towards the record. He held the record until May 2005.

He has appeared regularly at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, with shows such as "The Tim Vine Shambles" and "The Tim Vine Fiasco" which won him the perrier newcomer award in 1995. In 2006, he had a large advertising hoarding erected featuring his name and image, with a small sub-heading "...is not appearing at this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival"

On television, Vine co-launched Five with Julia Bradbury on 30 March 1997 and presented the game show "Whittle" on the channel. Vine has also presented the game show "Fluke" on Channel 4, Housemates on BBC 1 and later "Fort Boyard Takes on the World" on Challenge. Vine was also one of the regular team of comedians to write for and appear in the ITV comedy series "The Sketch Show", which won a BAFTA, and played the role of namesake Tim in the BBC One situation comedy "Not Going Out". In 2005, he appeared alongside other celebrities in Spelling Bee, shown on ITV1. Tim appeared as a contestant on "Comic Relief does Fame Academy" on the BBC in 2007. He was voted out on Friday 9 March. He appeared at the Spring Harvest festival in 2007 and 2008 alongside John Archer at Skegness and Minehead, and at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in May 2007 for a show entitled "Tim Vine, Live in Concrete". In September 2007, Vine appeared with his brother Jeremy on the celebrity version of ITV1's "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" where they raised £1000 for the Fire Services National Benevolent Fund.

His musical talent, aside from the comedy songs in his act, includes playing the guitar, piano, and drums, and he has released an album of non-comedy songs, which can be bought at pretendpopstar.co.uk. Vine is a Christian and occasionally plays the drums at his church. He was in several bands, including The Flared Generation with brother Jeremy Vine. Both Tim and Jeremy Vine were educated at Epsom College in Surrey.

In December 2007, Vine launched his first podcast, 'Tim Vine Celebrates' [http://itunes.com/podcast?id=270643562 Tim Vine Celebrates — iTunes feed] . The first episode [http://wippit.com/Tim_Vine Tim Vine Celebrates... Christmas] was released for free on 19th December and introduces many previously unheard jokes and humorous songs, as well as a number of comedy characters, mostly voiced by Vine.

Vine has taken his comedy act on a tour of the United Kingdom, in tours such as "Current Puns" in 2006 and "Punslinger" in 2008. In July 2008, he recorded a performance at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London to be released as a new DVD entitled "So I Said To This Bloke..." The DVD will be available from 27th October 2008. Vine appeared at The Pleasance for the first two weeks of the Edinburgh Festival,when and has performed at Christian events such as Spring Harvest.

Many of Vine's jokes have been falsely attributed to Tommy Cooper; [ [http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/theatre/features/article5125.ece Tim Vine: Down the barrel of a pun] , "The Independent" 8 March 2005.] the West End show about Tommy Cooper actually features some of Vine's jokes.

The late Bob Monkhouse said of Tim, "he has taken the trick of word play and extended it to lengths no-one has ever dared before. A very funny man indeed."

Books

* "Sit-Down Comedy" (contributor to anthology, ed Malcolm Hardee & John Fleming) Ebury Press/Random House, 2003. ISBN-10: 0091889243; ISBN-13: 978-0091889241

References

External links

* [http://www.timvine.com Tim Vine] official website
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/articles/s/sketchshowthe_66603110.shtml BBC Comedy Guide] on the Sketch Show
* [http://www.sitcom.co.uk/not_going_out/about.shtml The British Sitcom Guide] on "Not Going Out"
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6398115.stm Tim to appear on Fame Academy]