Jason Manford was born May 26 1981 in Salford, Lancashire, he is an English writer, comedian, actor, radio and television presenter of Irish descent. He began his career in 1999, while working at the Buzz Comedy Club upstairs at the Southern Hotel in Chorlton, Manchester. Jason was collecting glasses when a performer didn’t arrive for an evening set, Jason, who was 17 at the time stepped in to fill the gap, an event which marked the beginning of his comedy career. Six gigs later he was crowned The City Life North West Comedian of the Year.
Jason supports Manchester City FC and has a season ticket with his Dad and three brothers. Jason cites Billy Connolly as the first comedian he saw when he was 9 years old, and as the very first inspiration for him to become a comedian. He has a love for family friendly entertainers like Eric Morecambe, Tommy Cooper and Les Dawson. Later on comics like Jasper Carrott and Dave Allen influenced Jason, but it wasn’t until he saw Peter Kay he decided to have a go himself.
After winning several smaller awards, Jason was nominated for the Perrier Award in Edinburgh in 2005 for his show ‘Urban Legends’, a stand up show about those stories that always seem to happen to a friend of a friend. Jason did the comedy clubs of the UK, including the Comedy Store and Jongleurs and did many gigs abroad as far a field as Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Singapore and China.
His first major television appearance was when he was a guest on the Channel 4 panel show, 8 out of 10 cats, presented by Jimmy Carr, he was on Dave Spikey’s team alongside Piers Morgan, and would later go on to replace Dave Spikey as Team Captain on 15th June 2007 and has since recorded 28 episodes.
Jason has performed stand up on television, including “Edinburgh and Beyond’ and ‘The World Stands Up” on the Paramount Channel and ‘Comedy Shuffle’ on BBC 3. The most high profile of these appearances was when he did a half spot on ‘Live at the Apollo’ on BBC 1 in November 2007, alongside Jack Dee and Russell Howard. A year later, 12th December 2008, he did the full show on the same show and was introduced by fellow 8 out of 10 Cats team captain, Sean Lock.
He began hosting a breakfast show on XFM Manchester from January 5th 2007 and which lasted until May 15, 2008. He recorded a dozen podcasts available on itunes.
He has also presented his own shows, the first of which was on Sky Three, ‘Premier League Allstars Extra Time’ in 2007, a show that went out at 11pm after the main ‘Premier League Allstars’ show had finished on Sky 1 The show was live and was an hour of chaotic slightly drunken interviews with former footballers, celebrities and fans who’d just finished playing 6-a-side football.
The other show was ‘Tonightly’, it aired every Monday to Friday during the month of August, 2008 on Channel 4 at around 11.15pm. It was a mix of topical jokes written about the days news, character sketches and guests including Ken Livingstone and Danny Wallace.
Jason is currently on his second National tour, which started in July 2010 and runs until the end of 2011.
Jason also enjoys charity work and raising money for them, he has worked for many different charities including Amnesty International, Manchester Children’s Hospital, Comic Relief, Children in Need, Victim Support, Prince’s Trust and Migraine Action. Currently Jason is a patron for Save Babies UK, and is focussing all his efforts on them for the time being. If I can help out in anyway, then please get in touch on the contacts page.
Jason is available for corporate hire, and has worked for many large UK companies, entertaining as well as hosting award ceremonies, for more information get in touch on the contacts page.
