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| Henry Naylor | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Henry James Naylor |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | Downing College, Cambridge |
| Genres | Satire |
| Spouse | |
| Notable works and roles | Spitting Image Parsons and Naylor's Pull-Out Sections Headcases |
Henry James Naylor is a Britishcomedy writer, director andperformer.[1] He is also a playwright.
Naylor read history and history of art atDowning College, Cambridge.[2][3]
Naylor was head writer forSpitting Image,[citation needed] and has written for many TV and radio programmes, includingAlas Smith and Jones,Dead Ringers andAlistair McGowan's Big Impression.[citation needed] His work helped these shows to win numerous awards, including a British Comedy Award and the Sony Gold.[citation needed]
With his comedy partnerAndy Parsons, he has performed satirical shows in live venues inAustralia and as part of theEdinburgh Fringe.[citation needed]Parsons and Naylor's Pull-Out Sections broadcast its ninth season onBBC Radio 2 during Spring 2007.[citation needed] A compilation CD was released in 2003.[citation needed] The duo also set up London's first comedy sketch club, TBA, at theGate Theatre (London) in the 1990s, and in the process helped discover many of Britain's leading sketch performers, includingArmstrong and Miller,Tony Gardner andThe Cheese Shop.[citation needed]
In 2008 he created, directed and executive-producedHeadcases, a satirical ITV show very similar toSpitting Image but made withCGI rather than puppets.[4] The show won numerous prestigious TV awards - including the RTS for Design and Innovation, and the C21 Award for Best New Sketch Show at Cannes' Mipcom - and was nominated for Best New Programme in the Broadcast Awards.[citation needed]
On the live circuit, Naylor has been a regular at the Edinburgh Festival, performing, writing and directing numerous sketch shows and plays (15 in total).[citation needed] In 2014 he was awarded one of the Festival's highest accolades, the Fringe First. He was also one of the international acts invited to perform at the Melbourne and Sydney Comedy Festivals.[citation needed]
He playedRowan Atkinson's sidekick Bough in a series of 17 commercials forBarclaycard.,[5] and in 1993 appeared in the children's television seriesPress Gang as the acerbically-drawn host (on roller skates) of a Saturday-morning kids' show alongside a puppet cat.
In 2003 he was in the news for throwing a fullEnglish breakfast atDavid Blaine during hisAbove the Below stunt on the South Bank of theRiver Thames inLondon.[6]
Naylor has written and directed award-winning plays for the Edinburgh Fringe, usually playing inThe Gilded Balloon Teviot.Finding Bin Laden (2003) was a satire about media representation of the2003 Invasion of Iraq, which also featured co-producer Sam Maynard's documentary photography.[7]
Hunting Diana, his 2004 Fringe offering, was about conspiracy theories surrounding the death ofDiana, Princess of Wales.[8]
In 2007 he directedSarah Kendall's Fringe showMy Very First Kidnapping.[citation needed]
In 2014 he wrote his first drama-tragedy,The Collector, which won one of the leading awards at the Edinburgh Festival, the Fringe First.[9][10][11] Set in an Iraqi gaol during the occupation of Iraq in 2003, the play attacked brutality on both sides of the conflict. The show transferred off-London'sWest End and played a sell-out season at theArcola Theatre in November 2014 to critical acclaim.[12][13] In autumn of 2016, the show will be going on an extensive 3-month tour of the UK.[citation needed]
In 2015, he premiered the second part of hisArabian Nightmares - Echoes. Opening at the Gilded Balloon, it won the Spirit of the Fringe Award at Edinburgh.[14] Exploring the surprising parallels between theJihadi adventurers of today and earlyVictorian pioneers, the play was a provocative and brutal examination ofcolonialism, and the resonances of history.Echoes received many highly favourable reviews, including one fromThe Guardian's lead criticMark Lawson, who described it as a "hugely impressive play".[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] The play transferred both off-West End and off-Broadway - to the Arcola Theatre in London (November 2015) and the59e59 Theater in New York (April 2016).[citation needed] Its world tour commenced in early 2016, and at the world's second-largest fringe -Adelaide - the show became one of the most decorated at the festival's history, winning five major fringe awards, including for Best Theatre, Critics' Choice and Pick of the Fringe.[25][26][27] Again, it scored five-star reviews.[28][29][30][31][32][33] In 2016 Naylor was due to premiere the third instalment of the Arabian Nightmares at the Gilded Balloon - its working title beingAngel.[citation needed]
{{cite web}}:External link in|title=| Cultural offices | ||
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| Preceded by Roland Kenyon | Footlights President 1990–1991 | Succeeded by |
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