Michael Smiley broke into stand-up in 1993, when he made the final of the So You Think You’re Funny new act competition. He performed at every Edinburgh Fringe from that year until 1998, and has gone on to become a regular at all the major clubs and several international comedy festivals. He has also performed stand-up on The Comedy Store and Live at Jongleurs shows on TV.

In 2000 he broke into TV acting, and has appeared as cycle courier Tyres O'Flaherty in Spaced, a handful of small roles in Al Murray’s Time Gentleman Please, as an Irish itinerant in Sean Lock’s 15 Storeys High and Phil Squod in the 2005 adaptation of Bleak House.