Jack Dee: 9 of our favourite moments
Known for his deadpan delivery style, comedian, writer and broadcaster Jack Dee has been a firm fixture of UK comedy for over three decades.
‘I come from a long line of performers and actors, it’s called a dole queue,’ once joked the man who took his first tentative steps into stand-up at The Comedy Store’s open mic nights in the late 1980s. By 1991 he’d scooped the British Comedy Award for Best Newcomer, and his career has continued to go from strength to strength, incorporating acting, writing, presenting and of course the stand-up comedy for which he made his name.
On Wednesday 27 October, Dee joins us at the Southbank Centre to talk about his new book, What Is Your Problem? The book sees Dee offer his own, shall we say ‘unique’, advice to answer readers’ problems, be they to do with relationships, finances, or nosey neighbours.
Ahead of this appearance, we thought we’d take a look back at Dee’s career and some of our favourite moments from the oft-described ‘grumpiest man in comedy’.
Challenging early gigs
Our intro to this blog suggests that one day Jack Dee stepped up on stage, and from then it was all plain sailing. But five years is a long time in stand-up, and this clip from Romesh Ranganathan: Talking to Comedians shows that Dee’s early experiences on the circuit weren’t always straight-forward. However, he also offers a compelling insight into his commitment to his own material.
Mooooojjjoooooooooooo!
Time for a clip from Dee’s early stand-up, and there’s only really one place to start; this infamous routine about a sweet-wrapper obsessed teacher.
That time he inexplicably hosted Top of the Pops
In 1996 Dee joined forces with the sadly departed Jeremy Hardy for Jack and Jeremy’s Real Lives, a criminally underrated collection of mockumentaries. Though the show – shuffled around the schedules – struggled to find an audience it did catch the eye of the producers of Top of the Pops; Dee and Hardy duly hosted the show in their own style, to the befuddlement of a lot of teenage music fans.
Winning the inaugural Celebrity Big Brother
It may seem hard to believe now, but back at the turn of the millennium, the then new reality show Big Brother was still being viewed as a televised social experiment, rather than a powder-keg collection of fame-hungry misfits. In 2001, as part of Comic Relief, the first ever Celebrity version of the show was produced, with Dee among the ‘inmates’. Dee’s relatable down-to-earth persona saw him gain a great deal of new fans, and also led to him winning the show. He’s since put a block on any clips from the series appearing on television, owing to a feeling that the show has gone on to exploit contestants, but he has relatively recently spoken to Graham Norton about the experience.
The Dangers of DIY
Time for some more stand-up, and a relatable burst from anyone who’s taken on DIY during the last year and half of lockdowns… or perhaps more presciently, lives with someone who has.
With your face like a needless comment…
…like a forgotten tunnel …like a fire-damaged doily. In 2008 Dee joined Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer’s anarchic panel show Shooting Stars as captain of Team A. Dee’s downbeat nature inevitably offered a hook for Reeves and Mortimer who would try to break him each episode, not only with Vic’s put-down intros, but also some elaborate prize games, including the time he felt the full force of opera.
Proving he really does have a clue
When the long-running host of Radio 4 institution I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue Humphrey Lyttleton sadly passed away in 2008, it was presumed he’d left behind a chair impossible to fill. The man offered the challenge of stepping into Lyttleton’s shoes was Dee, and since 2009 he’s proved a huge success, establishing himself as the perfect straight-man for Barry Cryer, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graham Garden et al.
Listen to a clip of Jack Dee on ISIHAC
The art of self deprecation
Beyond comedy, Dee has turned his hand to acting – appearing in Silent Witness, Dalziel & Pascoe and The Deputy – and also writing, penning, among others, three series of Lead Balloon. Described as Britain’s answer to Curb Your Enthusiasm, Lead Balloon sees Dee play the role of comedian Rick Spleen, a character described by Dee as ‘a what-if version of me, really, where nothing did quite turn out right and everything else is still around the corner.’
Panel show punchiness
Like all comedians Dee has maintained a regular presence on our television screens across the last decade with numerous panel show appearances, sitting in on QI, 8 out of 10 Cats, and Would I Lie to You? to name but a few. Though he often takes a back seat on these shows, you can still rely on him to spot a quick quip when the opportunity arises.