Al Murray

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Al Murray bigraphy, stories - Comedians

Al Murray : biography

10 May 1968 –

Alastair James Hay "Al" Murray (born 10 May 1968), is a British comedian and TV personality best known by his stand-up persona and quick repartee. He is best known for his character of The Pub Landlord, a mock-xenophobic but stereotypical public house licensee. In 2003, Murray was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy. In 2007 he was voted the 16th greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4’s 100 Greatest Stand-Ups. He currently has a part on the CBBC series Horrible Histories.

Books

Title Released
The Pub Landlord’s Book of British Common Sense 11 October 2007
The Pub Landlord Says Think Yourself British 5 October 2009
The Pub Landlord’s Great British Pub Quiz Book 28 October 2010

Stand-up DVDs

Title Released Notes
Live – My Gaff, My Rules 24 November 2003 Live at London’s Playhouse Theatre
…And A Glass of White Wine for the Lady!: Recorded Live at the Playhouse London 22 November 2004 Live at London’s Playhouse Theatre
Giving It Both Barrels: Live 29 May 2006 Live at London’s Bloomsbury Theatre
Live at the London Palladium 19 November 2007 Live at London’s Palladium Theatre
Beautiful British Tour: Live at the O2 16 November 2009 Live at London’s O2 Arena
Barrel of Fun: Live 22 November 2010 Live at London’s HMV Hammersmith Apollo
The Only Way Is Epic 26 November 2012 Live at Brighton’s Theatre Royal

Personal life

Murray married Amber Hargreaves, in 2002. The couple, who have two daughters, Scarlett and Willow, separated in 2008.

Murray, together with Stephen Fry, supported Paul Chambers’ successful High Court campaign for the right to free speech (over the sending of an allegedly "menacing" tweet).

Early life

Murray was born at Stewkley, Buckinghamshire, only son of Lieutenant Colonel Ingram Bernard Hay Murray (a great-great-great-great-grandson of John Murray, 3rd Duke of Atholl who married Charlotte, Baroness Strange) and Juliet Anne Thackeray, née Ritchie (a great-great-granddaughter of William Makepeace Thackeray). His grandfather, the diplomat Sir Ralph Murray, was of Scottish nobility and married into the von Kuenburg family, aristocrats from Austria.

Murray was educated at Bedford School, before going up to St Edmund Hall, Oxford, graduating with the degree of MA in Modern History. At Oxford he performed in the comedy group, the Oxford Revue in a show directed by Stewart Lee.

Career

Murray started out touring with other comedians including Harry Hill and Frank Skinner. He won the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1999, after being nominated in 1996, 1997 and 1998. He started out with an act that involved sound-effect impressions, including of guns, animals and a particularly impressive car boot; a combination that prompted an equal number of plaudits for vocal skill and complaints of tastelessness.

The Pub Landlord

His character, the Pub Landlord is a stereotypical, right-wing, British patriot advocating a dislike for anything "un-British". This character effuses a particular animosity towards Germans and the French; he will challenge the audience to name any country in the world before producing some plausible instance of Britain bettering it. The character also has a great love for the British 1970s rock band Queen, often getting musician(s) on his show to perform one of Queen’s tunes in their own style.

The character is very different from Murray’s real life public-school and Oxbridge background and first appeared in 1994 when Murray was the tour support act for Harry Hill. At that time part of a comedy band called "The Pub Band International" in which he played the drums, they were looking for a link to Hill’s act. After trying out a character which was deemed not to work, on the eve of performing at the Edinburgh Festival, Murray invented the Pub Landlord.