Mike Gunn

"One of the top ten stand-ups in the country" The Independent

Early in his career Mike was supporting the likes of Jo Brand and Alan Davies. He now headlines at all the top comedy venues in the UK and is rapidly reaching cult status on the circuit. He has performed internationally, taking his talent to Hong Kong, Ireland, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, New Zealand, and Saudi Arabia and to Australia at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, where he completed a five-week sell-out season. He also had the dubious honour of being the first comic to ever play in Kuantan, East Malaysia and recently entertained the troops in the Falkland Islands.

Television appearances include The Gas (CH4), The Comedy Store (LWT), Live At Jongleurs (CH5), Al Murray's sit-com 'Time Gentlemen Please' and Harry Hill's TV Burp. He is a regular on the Sky Poker channel. He has also been a contributor for The Guardian and has written for Time Out, The List, The 11 O'clock Show (CH4) and even Match of The Day Magazine.

Mike made his debut solo performance at the Edinburgh Festival where he adopted the character of a funeral director with his show 'Good Grief' and received rave reviews. His follow up show at the festival was the provocative show: "Uncut". A departure from stand-up, which documents the true story of his previous triumphant career as a registered heroin addict.

Mike Gunn's history is as interesting and entertaining as his comedy. As a child the young Gunn was more interested in doing projects on implements of torture than playing football. A misspent youth and a series of grim jobs cultivated his cynical outlook on life and a perverse desire led him to the world of stand-up. A self-confessed pessimist, he describes himself as "not a natural choice for a career in laughter".

His lugubrious comedy has been described as 'drier than a dead man's bones'. He has a rare ability to walk close to the line of what audiences find acceptable and yet still remain likable and funny. His reputation for being a bit unfriendly, a touch dark and even sexist is really not true. In real life he's loving, warm and philanthropic. Just a bit misunderstood.

Mike made his debut solo performance at the Edinburgh Festival where he adopted the character of a funeral director with his show 'Good Grief' and received rave reviews. In August 2003 he returned to the festival with a provocative new show: "Uncut". A departure from stand-up, Mike's latest show documents the true story of his previous triumphant career as a registered heroin addict. 'Uncut' lays bare and intimately explores Mike's life before, during, and after ten years of top-notch, premier league drug addiction. Clean now for 17 years, this show shares the why's and how's of getting totally messed up and reveals some of the darker moments of addiction alongside some of the very, very funny things that happen. "Uncut" is a funny and moving story of addiction told by a successful comedian with a somewhat sordid, utterly bizarre and completely hysterical past life.

On the face of it, it's not a funny subject but Mike likens being an addict to "treading on a rake and getting bashed in the face…time after time. That's funny as long as it's not you that's doing it." His inimitable laconic style prevails throughout a show which is a fascinating, uplifting, disturbing, poignant and extremely frank story from the comic who has done it all.

The show received rave reviews at the Edinburgh Festival and aided by a grant from the Arts Council, Mike has developed the show for a teenage audience and plans to perform it in theatres and arts centres, as well as in schools and universities around the UK. Gunn is confident that UNCUT can be a far more effective tool for raising drug awareness in schools than the hitherto more conventional "anti-drug" lecture. See www.mikegunn.co.uk for more information on the show.