David Armand (born David Robert Whitehead in September 1977) is an English comedian, actor and writer who has performed on stage, film, radio and most notably, television, where the shows he has appeared in include '' Fast and Loose'', ''

Episodes Episodes may refer to: * Episode An episode is a narrative unit within a larger dramatic work or documentary production, such as a series intended for radio, television or streaming consumption. The noun ''episode'' is derived from the Gree ...

'', ''

How Not to Live Your Life ''How Not to Live Your Life'' (styled in the opening credits as "how NOT to live your life") is a British sitcom, written by and starring Dan Clark that aired between 27 September 2007 and 22 December 2011 on BBC Three, about a pessimistic twenty ...

'', '' Pulling'', ''

The Armstrong & Miller Show ''The Armstrong & Miller Show'' is a British sketch comedy television show produced by Hat Trick Productions for BBC One. It features the double act Armstrong and Miller and a number of notable scriptwriters including Andy Hamilton, co-creator ...

'', ''Swinging'', and ''

Peep Show A peep show or peepshow is a presentation of a live sex show or pornographic film which is viewed through a viewing slot. Several historical media provided voyeuristic entertainment through hidden erotic imagery. Before the development of the ci ...

''. He is one of the writers and stars of the hit

CBBC CBBC (initialised as Children's BBC and also known as the CBBC Channel) is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast children's television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is also the bran ...

comedy shows ''

Sorry, I've Got No Head ''Sorry, I've Got No Head'' was a CBBC children's sketch comedy television series. The programme's cast originally consisted of William Andrews, David Armand, James Bachman, Marcus Brigstocke, Anna Crilly, Justin Edwards, Mark Evans, Mel Gie ...

'', and its sister show, ''

Pixelface ''Pixelface'' is a CBBC children's sitcom. The programme followed the adventures of a group of video game characters, previously seen in the Backstage Access sketches in the programme ''Sorry, I've Got No Head''. The characters include: Aethelw ...

. ''He has also written for shows such as ''

The Peter Serafinowicz Show ''The Peter Serafinowicz Show'' is a British sketch comedy show written by and starring Peter Serafinowicz. Its debut was on 4 October 2007 at 21:30 on BBC Two as part of the newly launched "Thursdays Are Funny" brand on the channel and Thursda ...

'' and''

Katy Brand's Big Ass Show ''Katy Brand's Big Ass Show'' is a British comedy programme on ITV2. The show features comedian Katy Brand in skits of real life situations and stereotypes, as well and celebrities such as Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen, Lady Gaga, Angelina Jolie, A ...

.''

Early life and career

Born in the

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

town of

Kettering Kettering is a market and industrial town in North Northamptonshire, England. It is located north of London and north-east of Northampton, west of the River Ise, a tributary of the River Nene. The name means "the place (or territory) of Ket ...

, Armand was educated at Latimer Community Arts College,

St Catharine's College, Cambridge St Catharine's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1473 as Katharine Hall, it adopted its current name in 1860. The college is nicknamed "Catz". The college is located in the historic city-centre of Camb ...

and the

London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) is a drama school located in Hammersmith, London. It is the oldest specialist drama school in the British Isles and a founding member of the Federation of Drama Schools. LAMDA's Principal is ...

. As a member of the sketch comedy troupe ''

The Hollow Men "The Hollow Men" (1925) is a poem by the modernist writer T. S. Eliot. Like much of his work, its themes are overlapping and fragmentary, concerned with post–World War I Europe under the Treaty of Versailles (which Eliot despised: compare "Ge ...

'', he appeared at the

Edinburgh Fringe The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 dif ...

four times between 1999 and 2002, travelled to America as a participant at the 2003

US Comedy Arts Festival The Comedy Festival, formerly known as the US Comedy Arts Festival, was a comedy festival that ran from 1995 to 2008. The festival included stand-up comedy performances, appearances by the casts of television shows, and has a film component calle ...

in the

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

mountain resort of

Aspen Aspen is a common name for certain tree species; some, but not all, are classified by botanists in the section ''Populus'', of the ''Populus'' genus. Species These species are called aspens: *'' Populus adenopoda'' – Chinese aspen (China ...

, and to Canada for a performance at

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

's 2005 '' Just for Laughs'' festival. The troupe wrote and starred in their self-titled TV series for the American network

Comedy Central Comedy Central is an American basic cable channel owned by Paramount Global through its network division's MTV Entertainment Group unit, based in Manhattan. The channel is geared towards young adults aged 18–34 and carries comedy programming ...

as well as two series for

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

. He is well known for his

mime Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) is an Internet standard that extends the format of email messages to support text in character sets other than ASCII, as well as attachments of audio, video, images, and application programs. Message ...

style

interpretive dance Interpretive dance is a family of modern dance styles that began around 1900 with Isadora Duncan. It used classical concert music but marked a departure from traditional concert dance. It seeks to translate human emotions, conditions, situations o ...

Natalie Imbruglia Natalie Jane Imbruglia ( , ; born 4 February 1975) is an Australian singer and actress. In the early 1990s, she played Beth Brennan in the Australian soap opera '' Neighbours''. Three years after leaving the programme, she began a singing car ...

's " Torn" (in character as "Austrian interpretive dance artist Johann Lippowitz"). A 2005 performance was broadcast by

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

Comedy and subsequently spread through the Internet. The performance is often incorrectly labelled as "Karaoke for the Deaf". He performed his famous dance on stage live with Natalie Imbruglia at the 2006 '' Secret Policeman's Ball'' for

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

. The performance started with Armand dancing with Imbruglia singing live vocals backstage, then on-stage, and concluded with Imbruglia performing Armand's dance moves alongside him. Utilizing the "Johann Lippowitz" alter ego, he has performed several other songs, including

Paul Young Paul Antony Young (born 17 January 1956) is an English musician, singer and songwriter. Formerly the frontman of the short-lived bands Kat Kool & the Kool Cats, Streetband and Q-Tips, he became a teen idol with his solo success in the 1980s. ...

's " Wherever I Lay My Hat". and "

Don't Look Back in Anger "Don't Look Back in Anger" is a song by English rock band Oasis. It was written by the band's guitarist and main songwriter Noel Gallagher. The song was produced by Gallagher and Owen Morris. Released on 19 February 1996 as the fifth single fro ...

" by

Oasis In ecology, an oasis (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment'ksar''with its surrounding feeding source, the palm grove, within a relational and circulatory nomadic system.” The location of oases has been of critical imp ...

. Armand starred in

BBC Three BBC Three is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was first launched on 9 February 2003 with programmes targeting 16 to 34-year-olds, covering all genres including animation, comedy, curre ...

sitcom, ''

'' as Eddie Singh, the over-enthusiastic

caregiver A caregiver or carer is a paid or unpaid member of a person's social network who helps them with activities of daily living. Since they have no specific professional training, they are often described as informal caregivers. Caregivers most commo ...

for the late grandmother of the show's leading character, Don Danbury (

Dan Clark Daniel Gregory Clark (born 3 July 1976) is an English actor, comedian, writer, director, and singer. He is best known for playing Don Danbury on the BBC Three sitcom ''How Not to Live Your Life'', which he also wrote, co-produced, and sometimes ...

). He has also appeared in several online BBC comedy sketches under the title This is Wondervision. In 2011 he appeared on BBC2's improv show '' Fast and Loose'', where he performed an interpretive dance routine to a different song each week. Two cast members had to guess the song title based on his routine. In February 2012 Armand appeared as John in

Alan Ayckbourn Sir Alan Ayckbourn (born 12 April 1939) is a prolific British playwright and director. He has written and produced as of 2021, more than eighty full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of ...

's '' Absent Friends'' at the

Harold Pinter Theatre The Harold Pinter Theatre, known as the Comedy Theatre until 2011,

, London, receiving a positive review from Michael Billington. In July 2012, he made regular appearances on the American TV show '' Trust Us with Your Life'' on ABC, performing interpretive dance to a popular song related to some aspect of the guest celebrity on that week's show, which the celebrity (wearing noise-cancelling headphones) was challenged to guess. He appeared in Comedy at the Hippodrome with

Ardal O'Hanlon Ardal O'Hanlon (; born 8 October 1965) is an Irish comedian, actor, and author. He played Father Dougal McGuire in ''Father Ted'' (1995–1998), George Sunday/Thermoman in '' My Hero'' (2000–2005), and DI Jack Mooney in '' Death in Paradise'' ...

and Adam Kay in 2017.

Filmography

Film

Television

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Armand, David 1977 births Living people Alumni of St Catharine's College, Cambridge Date of birth missing (living people) English male television actors English male comedians English comedy writers People from Kettering 20th-century English comedians 21st-century English comedians Comedians from Northamptonshire