Henry Naylor

Henry Naylor (born 19 January 1966) is a British comedy writer, director and performer, best known for his award-winning writing and for working with comedy partner Andy Parsons in Parsons and Naylor's Pull-Out Sections.^[1]

He was head writer for Spitting Image, and has written for many shows including, Alas Smith and Jones, Dead Ringers and Alistair McGowan's Big Impression. His work shows helped these shows win numerous awards, including the British Comedy Award, and The Sony Gold.

With Parsons, he has performed satirical shows in live venues in Australia and as part of the Edinburgh Fringe. Parsons and Naylor’s Pull-Out Sections broadcast its ninth season on BBC Radio 2 during Spring 2007. A compilation CD was released in 2003. The duo also set up London's first ever comedy sketch club TBA, at the Gate Theatre in the nineties, and in the process helped discover many of Britain's leading sketch performers including Armstrong and Miller, Tony Gardner and the Cheese Shop.

In 2008, he created, directed and executive produced Headcases, a satirical ITV show very similar to Spitting Image, but made with CGI rather than puppets.^[2] The show won numerous prestigious TV awards - including the RTS for Design and Innovation, and the C21 Award for Best New Sketch Show at Cannes' Mipcom - and was nominated for Best New Programme in the Broadcast Awards.

On the live circuit, Henry has been regular at the Edinburgh Festival, performing, writing and directing numerous sketch shows and plays (15 in total). In 2014 he was awarded one of the Festival's highest accolades, the Fringe First. He was also one of the international acts invited to perform at the Melbourne and Sydney Comedy Festivals.

His face is also known for playing Rowan Atkinson's sidekick 'Bough' in a series of 17 commercials for Barclaycard.

In 2003 he was in the news for throwing a full English breakfast at David Blaine during his Above the Below stunt on the South Bank of the River Thames in London.

Plays

Naylor has written and directed award-winning plays for the Edinburgh Fringe, usually playing in The Gilded Balloon Teviot. Finding Bin Laden (2003) was a satire about the media's representation of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, which also featured co-producer Sam Maynard's documentary photography.^[3]

Hunting Diana, his 2004 Fringe offering, was about conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.^[4]

In 2007 he directed Sarah Kendall's Fringe show My Very First Kidnapping.

In the summer of 2014 he wrote his first drama-tragedy - The Collector - which won one of the leading awards at the Edinburgh Festival, the Fringe First.^[5][6][7] Set in an Iraqi gaol during the occupation of Iraq in 2003, the play attacked brutality on both sides of the conflict. The show transferred off-London's West End, and played a sell-out season at the Arcola Theatre in November 2014, to critical acclaim.^[8][9] In Autumn of 2016, the show will be going on an extensive 3-month tour of the UK.

In 2015, he premiered the second part of his Arabian Nightmares - Echoes. Opening at the Gilded Balloon, it won the coveted Spirit of the Fringe Award at Edinburgh.^[10] Exploring the surprising parallels between the Jihadi adventurers of today and early Victorian pioneers, the play was a provocative and brutal tale of colonialism, and the rhyme of history. Echoes won a string of stellar reviews, including one from the Guardian’s lead critic Mark Lawson, who called it a ‘hugely impressive play.’^{[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]} The play transferred both off-West End and off-Broadway - to the Arcola Theatre in London (November 2015), and to the 59e59 Theater in New York (April 2016). Its World Tour commenced in early 2016 - and at the World's second largest Fringe - Adelaide - the show became one of the most decorated at the festival's history, winning 5 major Fringe Awards, including for Best Theatre, Critics' Choice and Pick of the Fringe.^[21][22][23] Again, it scored stellar five-star reviews.^{[24][25][26][27][28][29]} In 2016 Naylor is due to premiere the third instalment of the Arabian Nightmares at the Gilded Balloon - its working title being 'Angel.'

References

External links

• CV from the PFD (Agents) at the Wayback Machine (archive index)
• Henry Naylor at the Internet Movie Database