Further Information
“The real deal. Where philosophy collides with anxiety: where Heidegger meets Woody Allen"
The Guardian
UK comedian, actor, TV presenter and screenwriter Simon Amstell is touring Sydney and Melbourne for the very first time, performing a series of intimate shows at the Melbourne and Sydney Comedy Festivals. The shows follow the premiere of the six-part sitcom Grandma’s House, written by and starring Amstell, on ABC1 in February 2012.
One of the smartest and funniest comics to emerge in the last ten years, -The Evening Standard calls him ‘painfully funny’ – Simon Amstell combines razor-sharp wit with emotional honesty, existential angst with a gleeful lust for life.
Amstell’s television profile grew as presenter of Popworld – Channel 4’s weekly pop programme. But it was as the controversial host of Never Mind The Buzzcocks on BBC2 from 2006-2009, where his acerbic wit and verbal tussles with the likes of Russell Brand, Lily Allen and Noel Fielding won him widespread notoriety, two British Comedy Awards and a Royal Television Society Award.
Quitting the program at the height of its success, Amstell turned his hand to screenwriting and acting with Grandma’s House. The comedy, co-written by Simon Amstell and Dan Swimer, stars Amstell as someone very close to his real-life self. Fed up with hosting a quiz show in which he ridicules idiotic pop singers, ‘Simon’ decides to leave to do something ‘more meaningful’. The action takes place in Amstell’s grandmother’s suburban house with various family members drifting in and out. Grandma’s House bears echoes of Woody Allen and Mike Leigh but is entirely original and has been a huge critical and ratings success. The BBC has commissioned a second series which is currently being produced.
“I wore a lot of my own clothes on Grandma’s House. At the end of the shoot, I thought, ‘I can’t be that guy any more’, so I bought some new trousers. I imagined everything would be different because I had some new trousers. But it was a case of ‘different trousers, same idiot’.” – The Independent
NUMB is Amstell’s new stand-up show. Audiences can expect some painful honesty – He’s ‘a comic of great timing, smooth links and devastating meta psychoanalysis’ (The Independent)
“I’m only happy if there’s an element of discovery. I don’t want to be the expert guy who always knows what he’s doing. I want to be learning all the time. I like it when people think, not bad, considering he shouldn’t be here.”
