40 Fun Facts About Harry Hill

Before turning to stand-up in the early 1990s, Harry Hill had trained and worked in which profession?

Doctor was Harry Hill's first career: he took a medical degree in London in 1988 and worked in hospitals. He quit because he did not feel in control of what was happening.

Which ITV show of viewers' home-video mishaps did Harry Hill narrate from 2004 until 2022?

You've Been Framed! lost its studio set, audience and on-screen host when Harry Hill took over as an unseen narrator. His voice-over left room for more clips in every episode.

Which oversized part of Harry Hill's stage shirt is his visual trademark, along with browline glasses?

The collar, worn comically large with matching giant cuffs, is part of Harry Hill's usual stage outfit. He kept the shape even for his children's series, swapping white for pale yellow.

In The Harry Hill Movie, which seaside resort do Harry and Nan drive to with a supposedly dying hamster?

Blackpool is picked by mistake: the hamster, Abu, really wants to visit the singer Rihanna, but Harry cannot understand him. The film's finale plays out at the top of the resort's tower.

On Harry Hill's TV Burp, how did Harry settle which of two things was better just before the advert break?

A fight, staged as studio slapstick, decided the matter each week. Harry Hill later borrowed the word for the title of his memoir about thirty years in comedy.

Which future Oscar nominee played contestant Chenice in Harry Hill's X Factor musical, I Can't Sing!?

Cynthia Erivo created the role of Chenice in the West End show, which closed after barely six weeks. She moved on to Broadway in The Color Purple and later played Elphaba in the Wicked films.

Harry Hill and composer Steve Brown wrote a 2022 stage rock opera about which former British prime minister?

Tony Blair is the subject of the musical comedy, which follows his life story. The pandemic forced its first outing online, a year before the stage premiere at London's Park Theatre.

Which animals, as puppets, were meant to parade at the end of each episode of Harry Hill's Channel 4 show?

Badgers never quite managed it: every week some problem stopped the parade, so Harry Hill sang a song with a guest instead. One puppet was named after the footballer Gareth Southgate.

A joke about something yellow and dangerous named Harry Hill's 2005 children's series: shark-infested what?

Custard completes the title of the first show Harry Hill made for children, a thirteen-part sketch series for ITV. It later inspired his Whopping Great Joke Book.

Which veteran actress played Harry's scooter-riding grandmother, known only as Nan, in The Harry Hill Movie?

Julie Walters played Nan, who opens the film in a scooter chase with her grandson. The character hides a guilty secret: she abandoned Harry's twin brother in the 1970s.

Harry Hill is a stage name: under which real name was the comedian born in Surrey in 1964?

Matthew Hall is the comedian's real name, in full Matthew Keith Hall. He was born in Woking and grew up in the Kent village of Staplehurst, apart from two teenage years abroad.

At which annual arts event did Harry Hill win the first Perrier Best Newcomer award, his 1992 breakthrough?

Edinburgh Fringe judges added the newcomer category in 1992 and Harry Hill was its first winner. A BBC series of his own was commissioned shortly afterwards.

Which Little Britain star played Otto, Harry's evil twin brother, in The Harry Hill Movie?

Matt Lucas played Otto, who plots to steal Harry's hamster and turn it into a model figurine for his collection. The scheme is Otto's revenge for being abandoned as a child.

Which comedian provided the voice of Abu, the supposedly dying pet hamster, in The Harry Hill Movie?

Johnny Vegas voiced Abu while a puppeteer worked the hamster on screen. Abu turns out not to be dying at all: he was only ill from sucking a green felt-tip pen.

Which real indie band appear as themselves in The Harry Hill Movie, running a bed and breakfast?

The Magic Numbers play the owners of a B&B where Harry and Nan stop for the night, and they sing a song about the place. The band is made up of two brother-and-sister pairs.

In The Harry Hill Movie, Harry's abandoned twin brother Otto is said to have been raised by which animals?

German shepherds brought Otto up after Nan gave him away in the 1970s. She finally admits her real reason for doing it: she kept getting the two babies mixed up.

Which fellow comedian did Harry Hill ask to take over as host of TV Burp, only to be turned down?

Peter Kay said no, so the show ended when Harry Hill left in 2012. Hill quit partly over the workload: hours of preview tapes had to be watched to find clips lasting seconds.

Harry Hill's TV Burp was briefly portrayed in which 2012 spectacle celebrating British popular culture?

Olympic opening ceremony viewers saw the show stand for a typical British Saturday evening, with television bringing the family together. The London 2012 sequence covered pop culture since the 1960s.

Which country made its own version of Harry Hill's TV Burp in 2009, hosted by comedian Ed Kavalee?

Australia got its version on the Seven Network, mocking local shows such as Home and Away. Ratings fell with each of the first three episodes and no second series followed.

Harry Hill's TV Burp spoofed The X Factor with a talent contest in which craft?

Knitting was the skill on trial in The K Factor, a send-up of the ITV talent show. The running joke later got a tie-in book of its own, released in 2011.

Harry Hill's TV Burp featured a regular parody of Heather Trott, a character from which British soap opera?

EastEnders is Heather's soap. On TV Burp she was played by a man dressed to look like her, and the real actress, Cheryl Fergison, made a surprise appearance at the end of the final episode.

Ofcom ruled against Harry Hill's TV Burp over teatime clips of which survival presenter eating a frog?

Bear Grylls was shown eating a frog and cooking a turtle, which the regulator judged wrong for an early-evening slot watched by families.

Which comedian played Harry Hill's big brother, first on radio and then on his Channel 4 show?

Al Murray made his first television appearances as Alan, having started his comedy career working with Harry Hill on radio. He later found fame of his own as the Pub Landlord.

Which veteran actor appeared as himself on Harry Hill's Channel 4 show, forever failing to catch a chicken?

Burt Kwouk, known as Cato in the Pink Panther films, had a new excuse each week for coming back empty-handed. He had already joined Harry Hill's on-air family in the later series of his radio show.

Stouffer, the blue rubber glove puppet on Harry Hill's Channel 4 show, was which kind of animal?

A cat called Stouffer sat on a throne and was used to intimidate guests during Harry Hill's stand-up routines. The puppet perched on a rubber arm in the style of Rod Hull.

On which BBC network did Harry Hill's Fruit Corner run for four series between 1993 and 1997?

Radio 4 commissioned Fruit Corner soon after Harry Hill's newcomer award. The series became the springboard for his television career, and his later sketch show copied its style and structure.

Which ITV talent show, long hosted by Matthew Kelly, did Harry Hill revive for six episodes in 2015?

Stars in Their Eyes came back with a running gag in which an Adele lookalike chased Harry Hill to recover her baby. ITV axed the revival after a single series because of low ratings.

Harry Hill once performed This Charming Man on a celebrity TV talent show while impersonating which singer?

Morrissey co-wrote the song with guitarist Johnny Marr, and the Smiths released it as their second single in 1983. Harry Hill sang it in character on a 1999 celebrity special.

Which Channel 4 children's competition did Harry Hill begin presenting in 2019, with Liam Charles as a judge?

Junior Bake Off had spent four series on CBBC before it followed its parent show to Channel 4, where Harry Hill took over as presenter and episodes doubled in length to an hour.

Harry Hill played which absent-minded professor from Norman Hunter's children's books in a 2014 BBC film?

Branestawm, whose name is a play on the word brainstorm, builds inventions that malfunction or work in ways nobody expected. Harry Hill returned for an hour-long sequel the following Christmas Eve.

Harry Hill was unmasked on ITV's The Masked Singer after competing in which animal costume?

Red Panda lasted until the sixth episode, belting out Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell and a Black Eyed Peas hit along the way. Only then was Harry Hill revealed under the mask.

Harry Hill's X Factor musical I Can't Sing! closed after barely six weeks at which famous West End theatre?

London Palladium seats proved too many to fill: Simon Cowell said afterwards that the show had gone into too big a theatre. It reportedly lost £4 million.

Harry Hill has written several children's books about the adventures of Tim, a tiny example of which animal?

Tim the Tiny Horse is a very small horse whose story Harry Hill followed with a sequel, At Large. Both were later collected with four new stories as A Complete History of Tim.

Harry Hill's 2007 comic book imagined the further adventures of which late member of the royal family?

The Queen Mother is the heroine of The Further Adventures of the Queen Mum, a comic take on her life and times. It was Harry Hill's third book, after a debut novel and a children's story.

Harry Hill's Real Life Adventures in TV Land was a strip that ran from 2010 in which British comic?

The Dandy added the strip in a 2010 relaunch that leaned on celebrity spoofs. Harry Hill helped to create it and shares the credit with the artist, Nigel Parkinson.

Which Fairtrade snack did Harry Hill launch under his own brand in 2008, designing the packaging himself?

Peanuts, salted and sold as Harry's Nuts, were his idea of a service to snackers. He made them with the Fairtrade company Liberation so the farmers who grew them were paid a fair price.

Harry Hill is a member of the appreciation society for which Lancashire-born star of 1930s film comedies?

George Formby, the ukulele-playing singer who became Britain's highest-paid entertainer, counts Harry Hill among his fans. The George Formby Society even appeared as a guest act on Hill's ITV panel show.

Harry Hill spent two of his teenage years living in which Asian city, where he attended Island School?

Hong Kong became home when Harry Hill was 14 and his family moved out from Kent. He came back to England two years later and finished his schooling at Cranbrook.

In which seaside town on the north Kent coast do Harry Hill and his family have their home?

Whitstable, a town long famous for its oysters, is where Harry Hill lives with his wife, the artist Magda Archer. He has also turned up at comedy nights in the local Playhouse Theatre.

Harry Hill's Tea Time, launched on Sky 1 in 2016, was a spoof of which kind of television programme?

Cookery show habits were turned upside down as Harry Hill welcomed celebrities to a comedy kitchen and asked them to cook bizarre things. The baker Paul Hollywood was among the first guests.