Paul Kerensa started stand-up in 2002, when he won the ITV Take The Mike competition, and was a finalist in the BBC New Comedy Awards, Daily Telegraph Open Mic Awards and Wilkinson Sword Cutting Edge Of Comedy Awards. That year, he also wrote a comic play for the Edinburgh Fringe – Spinning Jenny.
He made his Edinburgh debut in 2005 with 26 – based around the American action show 24 – and returned in 2006, 2007 and 2008.
As a writer for TV and radio, he co-wrote Not Going Out with Lee Mack, Simon Evans and Andrew Collins and has worked on The News Quiz, Dead Ringers, The Now Show and After You’ve Gone.
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A real comedy pioneer
Unearthed: The first known recording of a comedian broadcast in the UK
Here is the oldest surviving recording of a comedian that aired in the UK.
Helena Millais appeared in character the Cockney Our Lizzie on London’s 2LO radio station on October 20, 1922 - three weeks before the BBC launched.
The rare recording has been given a new airing, 98 years on, for a podcast about the early days of UK broadcasting.
Comedian Paul Kerensa, who hosts the British Broadcasting Century, said: ‘She was a character act not that far removed from Victoria Wood.
‘There was no copy of her act online at all, but one of our listeners, comedy writer Alan Stafford, found a copy from an old radio documentary on a tape in his loft, so we’ve included it in the podcast to preserve online forever.’
She wasn’t quite the first comedian on air. Charles Cory was broadcast performing his act to an audience from Westminster's Wireless Exhibition on September 30 of that year, and two days later William Parkyn and Herbert Dickeson, both described as ‘humorists' were transmitted from the same event. But no recordings of these are thought to exist.
And while they were broadcast of stage acts, Millais is believed to be the first comedian to perform in a studio to no live audience, just listeners at home.
The British Broadcasting Century podcast is available here. Kerensa, known for his regular appearances on Radio 2’s Pause For Thought segment, is also recreating the first BBC broadcast, a news bulletin, in time for the Corporation’s 98th birthday on November 14
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