This Christmas will see RUSSELL HOWARD’s eagerly awaited debut comedy-drama A Gert Lush Christmas on BBC Two. Co-written with fellow stand-up STEVE WILLIAMS (Russell Howard’s Good News, Michael MacCintyre’s Comedy Roadshow), RUSSELL will star alongside NEIL MORRISSEY (Men Behaving Badly, Waterloo Road), GREG DAVIES (The Inbetweeners, Man Down), SOPHIE THOMPSON (EastEnders) and for the very first time, alongside his sister KERRY HOWARD (Him & Her, I Give it A Year).
‘Gert Lush’ [English, Adjective, Bristolian Slang]: – The highest form of praise a Bristolian can bestow on anything.
Christmas ‘tis the season to be jolly’, unless you are Dan Colman (RUSSELL HOWARD), a regular guy who is about to introduce the woman of his dreams, Lisa (HANNAH BRITLAND), to his crazy but loveable west country family. With his fitness-obsessed Dad (NEIL MORRISSEY), party animal Uncle Tony (GREG DAVIES), wonderfully inappropriate brother Jake (DOUGGIE MCMEEKIN) and lovely but utterly bonkers mum (SOPHIE THOMPSON)… what could possibly go wrong?
RUSSELL is best known for the BBC’s internationally popular Russell Howard’s Good News. As well as reaching three million viewers a week and regularly being the most watched show on iPlayer across all BBC Channels, it is also available around the world via a YouTube channel launched in 2014 – allowing fans to watch full episodes of the show (without piracy) in countries where the show wasn’t already broadcast – and has had over 11 million views and been watched in 180 countries (including North Korea and Vatican City). Episodes of Russell Howard’s Good News have even been subtitled and uploaded to Chinese video site AcFun, where the show has also been watched over 4 million times. The global success of Good News has seen RUSSELL go on to sell out a world stand-up tour playing to over 285,000 fans and then return to the USA for a major second sell-out tour earlier this year.
What the press said recently about Russell Howard:
“Howard has become one of the most successful stand-ups of his generation.”
Ross Jones, The Telegraph
“Perennially popular… sanguine hyperactive stand-up – with a healthy dollop of schoolyard puerility.”
Warren Howard, The Independent
“Howard’s success is down to the way his comic outlook strikes a chord… He’s not afraid to be silly and gently whimsical but he never disappears up his own arse. And his attitude is always sunnily optimistic, taking delight in the daft little details of his life.”
James Kettle, The Guardian
A Gert Lush Christmas will be in BBC Two’s Christmas schedule (exact date TBC)
For more information please contact: Dan Lloyd or Nathan Dean at Avalon on 0207 598 7222 [email protected]m or [email protected]
Notes to editors:
A Gert Lush Christmas is an Avalon Television production. The show is written by RUSSELL HOWARD and STEVE WILLIAMS, produced by MARK IDDON (Russell Howard’s Good News, Live At The Electric), directed by AL CAMPBELL (Bad Education, Man Down), while the Executive Producers are JAMES TAYLOR, RICHARD ALLEN-TURNER, and JON THODAY.
Avalon Television is also currently in production with: Catastrophe (Channel 4), Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), Not Going Out (BBC One), Russell Howard’s Good News (BBC Two), Russell Howard’s Stand Up Central (Comedy Central UK), Taskmaster (UKTV) and Workaholics (Comedy Central USA).
