Impressionist Alistair McGowan is a brilliantly funny entertainer.  Awards include a Best Comedy Entertainment Award at the British Comedy Awards, Best Entertainment Programme at the Broadcast Awards and Variety Club Comedy Award.  The master of mimicry boasts a repertoire of over 100 impersonations. The Posh and Becks characters from the Big Impression series were so popular a one off special was made.  Alistair went on to play the lead in BBC1’s comedy detective series Mayo. He was in the BBC’s critically acclaimed production of Bleak House, and starred in The Government Inspector and 5/11 at the Chichester Festival Theatre.

Background

After graduating from Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Alistair began working as a stand-up comic playing clubs up and down the country including London’s Comedy Store. He soon became known for his excellent impersonations and went on to provide the voices for many of the characters on Spitting Image. These included Tony Blair, Chris Eubank, Prince Charles and Hugh Grant. As well as being a hugely respected impressionist, Alistair is also a critically acclaimed actor, having won rave reviews  at the Nottingham Playhouse for his role as Clov in Endgame and Franz Kafka in Alan Bennett’s Kafka’s Dick. Alistair completed a very successful run in London’s West End in Art, playing Serge.

His television credits include Spock in the award-winning BBC series Preston Front and Redwald in ITV’s Dark Ages. Alistair has appeared as a guest on numerous television shows including 29 Minutes of Fame, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, Parkinson, Richard and Judy.  Other shows include  The Royal Variety Performance, The Big Read, Question of Sport, Points of View.  He has also been involved in several sketch shows including Fist of Fun.

Alistair is also a very familiar name to BBC Radio 4’s Light Entertainment Department and has been involved in numerous comedies including The Nick Revell Show, First Impressions and Doon Your Way. He has worked with Harry Hill on When Harry Met Ally and completed four series of The Game’s Up for radio Five Live. Other BBC radio work includes The World of Pub, and reading Book at Bedtime. Sport has always been near to Alistair’s performing heart. He re-voicing of video footage for The Staggering Stories of Ferdinand De Bargos, The Sports Review of the Year, Match of the Day and Oddballs has turned him into a sideline sporting celebrity and he has released two videos, Football Backchat and The Second Leg, which are best sellers both in the comedy and sports DVD charts.

In 2017, he released Alistair McGowan: The Piano Album through Sony Classics. The album reached number two in the Classic FM chart and was John Brunning’s Album of The Week in September 2017. He went on tour with the album in 2018 and again in 2019 with a combination of playing the pieces and recounting witty tales about the composers’ lives. He was back on tour in 2019 doing purely stand-up and impressions alongside Jasper Carrott. Alistair was back on tour again with his Piano Show in 2022 – live concerts interspersed with comedy.  Reviews include “An absolutely joyous revelation” Wirral Globe and “A lovely show mixing comedy and serious music; a crazy idea that works … The audience drank it in” Daily Mail

Environmentalist

Alistair is also a keen environmentalist. He is an ambassador to WWF-UK, part of the global World Wide Fund for Nature, and campaigns on a number of environmental issues. Alistair is a patron of the urban tree-planting charity Trees for Cities. He also launched ‘the BIG recycle’ national recycling campaign.

After dinner speaker and host

He is now well established as an after dinner speaker and has spoken at events as diverse as the Footballers Association Annual Dinner and The Royal Television Society Awards.  He is a superb choice for corporate events, always personalising his performance for the specific occasion.  Alistair is both brilliantly funny and completely professional:

“Alistair was fantastic at [the] event. My client would like to book him to host next year’s event!” Entrepreneur’s Circle Awards

“Alistair was fantastic – the crowd loved him. What a gentlemen and a pleasure”. MDA UK

“Alistair was great … All the sponsors loved the evening and the feedback we have got was superb.” Reed Business Information

“We and our audience were really very pleased with what he delivered – I got the sense that people enjoyed his set, there was plenty of laughter, and comments afterwards were all positive. As expected, his impressions were excellent. He engaged with us beforehand too and was very easy to work with” ICAEW Regional President 2022

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