Find Live comedy

Live Comedy in London |
Manchester | Scotland

Richard Ayoade

The Cambridge-educated son of a Nigerian father and Swedish mother, Richard Ayoade first came to prominence starring in and co-writing the 2000 Edinburgh Fringe show Garth Merenghi's Fright Knight with Matthew Holness, winning the Perrier Award for its sequel, Garth Merenghi's Netherhead, the following year. The show transferred to Channel Four in 2004 as Garth Merenghi's Darkplace, before spawning the spin-off 80s chat show spoof, Man to Man with Dean Learner, fronted by Ayoade's 'smut-peddler' character.

Appearances in The Mighty Boosh and Nathan Barley were followed by his highest profile role to date in Graham Linehan's sitcom The IT Crowd, playing socially inept tech support worker Moss, a role he reprised for an unaired US adaptation in 2009.

Establishing a parallel career as a music video director for the likes of The Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian and The Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, he directed his first film, the coming-of-age comedy-drama Submarine in 2010, and his second, The Double, a nightmarish, dystopian comedy-drama, loosely based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's novella, in 2014.

Richard Ayoade adapts his Unfinished Harauld Hughes novel for TV

Possible comedy series about the fictional, prickly playwright

Richard Ayoade is adapting his novel, The Unfinished Harauld Hughes into a possible TV comedy series.

The whimsical book is about Ayoade trying to save the titular fictional playwright – who also happens to be his doppelgänger – from obscurity by making a documentary of his life and tracking down his last, lost film for posterity.

The comic even wrote the complete works of Hughes – whose work, personal life and prickly character echo Harold Pinter’s – and released them as three volumes to accompany the novel

London-based House Productions, the company behind Conclave and Sherwood – is working on the adaptation.

As previously announced, Ayoade is also working on an adaptation of George Saunders' short story The Semplica Girl Diaries for the same production house. The story revolves around real-life ‘Semplica Girls’ trafficked from impoverished countries to be status symbols for the rich.

The Harauld Hughes project was revealed in a Variety interview with House chiefs Tessa Ross and Juliette Howell earlier this month, and spotted by the British Comedy Guide today.

No broadcaster has been mentioned in connection with the possible show.

Meanwhile, Ayoade appears in a new video for Kim Deal's Big Ben Beat. The IT Crowd star also directed the promo for the former Breeders frontwoman’s latest track, and recruited his own family to star in it: