Brian Conley

Brian Conley (born 7 August 1961 in Paddington, London) is an English comedian, television presenter, singer and actor.

Biography

Brian Paul Conley was born and raised in West London and studied Performing Arts at The Barbara Speake Stage School. He started his career as a holiday camp entertainer, working as a Pontin's Bluecoat at the age of 16. After Pontin's, he joined successful comedy showband called Tomfoolery. In 1982, he appeared on the British version of the gameshow Make Me Laugh, presented by Bernie Winters.

After "Tomfoolery", Conley became a warm up man for the likes of Terry Wogan, Noel Edmonds and Kenny Everett. Afterwards, he started appearing in front of the cameras with regular appearances in Five Alive and Live from the Palladium. He was soon snapped up by ITV and given his own starring vehicle to demonstrate his unique and versatile talents, this was Brian Conley: This Way Up which was followed by The Brian Conley Show, both very successful sketch shows. He was then offered the lead role in the sitcom Time after Time which was awarded The British Comedy Award for Best ITV Sitcom. He then went on to play the hugely popular Doug 'Dynamo' Digby, starring opposite Amanda Holden, Nigel Planer and Noddy Holder in The Grimleys. He was also given two "An Audience with..." shows.

Around 2000, Conley was given a new show for ITV consisting of chat and music called, once again, The Brian Conley Show. The show lasted for three series. The show's guests included some major Hollywood names, like Kathleen Turner, Leslie Nielsen and James Belushi.

He also worked at the BBC for a couple of shows. His first being "Got Your Number", a game show part of a long series of National Lottery game shows. Conley would later return to the BBC to present Let Me Entertain You in 2006.

He has done much stage work, including the parts Buttons in Cinderella and Caractacus Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

In 2006, Brian Conley returned to television, hosting a daytime variety show called Let Me Entertain You, a Lion TV production for BBC Two, where 13 year old Operatic Baritone, Matthew Crane, was the First Series Champion. On 1 December of the same year, he appeared as a guest presenter on The New Paul O'Grady Show on Channel 4, where Larry The Loafer made an appearance in the beginning, and Brian referred himself to "Dangerous Brian" as he was about to enter the "Tank of Doom" as part of a Bushtucker trial.

Later in 2007, Conley presented a second series of Let Me Entertain You on BBC Two, and can currently be seen presenting a new gameshow for the BBC called Dirty Rotten Cheater (originally on BBC One, but moving to BBC Two). Twenty shows were recorded in May at the Maidstone Studios in Kent. There is also unconfirmed news of him appearing in "the Jennifer Saunders new comedy drama", possibly referring to her "sitcom", Jam and Jerusalem. He is also performing as Buttons in the 2007 pantomime 'Cinderella' at Wycombe Swan Theatre from December.

On 30 August 2007, Conley appeared as a guest on That Antony Cotton Show; Brian's first appearance on ITV since 2003. It featured a clip from The Brian Conley Show, indicating that episodes still exist in archives.

Conley has presented the Midweek Lottery show on BBC 1 in 2008.

On 24 April 2008 Brian took over from ill presenter Paul O'Grady on The Paul O'Grady Show on Channel 4, where he starred once again as 'Dangerous Brian' and he contested against 'Nearly Dangerous Joyce'. Larry the loafer also made an appearance. On 22 June 2008, Brian starred as a cameo on Last of the Summer Wine as "Boothroyd", Barry's fitness mad neighbour.

Brian is currently appearing as part of Team Ant on Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway.

He has taken over from Michael Ball in the musical Hairspray playing the role of Edna Turnblad at London's Shaftesbury Theatre.

Television Appearances

• Live From Her Majesty's (1984)
• Five Alive (1986)
• Laughs From The Palladium (1987)
• Brian Conley: This Way Up (1989-1990)
• Telethon Night Out (1992)
• The Brian Conley Show (1992-1995)
• Time After Time (1993)
• Brian Conley: Alive and Dangerous (1996)
• Brian Conley's Crazy Christmas (1997)
• The Grimleys (1999-2001, starred 1999-2000)
• The Brian Conley Show (2000-2003)
• Hotel! (2001)
• Judgement Day (2003)
• Let Me Entertain You (2006-)
• The New Paul O'Grady Show (2006) (Guest presenter)
• Dirty Rotten Cheater (2007) (Host)
• The Paul O'Grady Show (2008) (Guest presenter)
• Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway (2009) (Guest)

Music and Stage Work

Conley is also known for his singing voice and has released multiple albums, including "Songs From The Shows", "Stage to Stage" and "Let The Good Times Roll". After he left television, he went on to stage work and appeared as Buttons in Cinderella. He was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for his performance as Al Jolson in the musical Jolson (1995), and also appeared in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as Caractacus Potts.

Brian is starring as Buttons in Cinderella at Wycombe Swan in High Wycombe from December 2007. This ended on January 6th where he managed to do 54 performances, two a day, with only 2 days off in the 4 weeks it was showing.

Conley is currently starring in 'The Music Man' at the Chichester Festival Theatre in Chichester, West Sussex.

In Sping 2009 Brian is Touring Theatres in the UK with his own show called The Best of Brian Conley.

From 27th July 2009 Brian Conley will return to the West End this summer when he takes over from Michael Ball in the cross-dressing role of Edna Turnblad in the multi award-winning Broadway import Hairspray at the Shaftesbury Theatre.

Films

He has appeared on the silver screen in "Circus", with John Hannah and Eddie Izzard, and "Unconditional Love" with Kathy Bates. In 2002, Conley made a cameo in Kurt Wimmer's 2002 Science Fiction film Equilibrium.

Trivia

Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (May 2008)

• His most popular catchphrase was "It's A Puppet" used for a Brian Conley show character Nick Frisbee, with "old mate buddy pal" Larry The Loafer, a parody of Gordon the Gopher.
• Some of Brian's material have been repeated by other acts in the past. One example was Joe Pasquale's act on the 2005 Royal Variety Performance, where a trick involved ripping a piece of paper into pieces, putting the pieces into his mouth, removing the final piece to see the paper back together, followed my spitting out the rest of the paper by talking. This was performed by Brian on The Brian Conley Show, and Alive and Dangerous. One joke from one of Brian's live shows, "Alive and Dangerous", was repeated by a 13-year-old act on BBC Two's Let Me Entertain You which Brian hosts. The boy was voted off by the audience.
• He hosted unaired pilots of gameshows Play Your Cards Right (Bruce Forsyth) and Deal or No Deal (Noel Edmonds).
• Performed It Only Takes a Minute by Take That for a challenge on Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway as part of a band led by Dec.

External links

• Brian Conley Official Site
• BBC Comedy Guide to Brian Conley: This Way Up
• BBC Comedy Guide to The Brian Conley Show
• Brian Conley at the Internet Movie Database