Paul Putner (born March 1966) is an English actor and comedian.

Life and career

Putner was born in March 1966 in

East Grinstead East Grinstead is a town in West Sussex, England, near the East Sussex, Surrey, and Kent borders, south of London, northeast of Brighton, and northeast of the county town of Chichester. Situated in the extreme northeast of the county, the civ ...

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an a ...

. He studied at LAMDA where he won the

Kenneth More Kenneth Gilbert More, CBE (20 September 1914 – 12 July 1982) was an English film and stage actor. Initially achieving fame in the comedy ''Genevieve'' (1953), he appeared in many roles as a carefree, happy-go-lucky gent. Films from this peri ...

prize for comedy acting. His first significant TV role saw Putner as numerous characters in '' The Glam Metal Detectives'' shown on BBC2. His real break in comedy came after he set up the club ''The Regency Rooms'' with fellow performers Steve Furst and Oliver Darly. The club developed a cult following and was attended by many comics. Richard Herring saw Paul performing there and cast him in his play ''Punk's Not Dead'' 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 ...

. This role led to many others including TV roles in Lee and Herring's shows. He has appeared in numerous British TV and radio shows, including ''

This Morning With Richard Not Judy ''This Morning With Richard Not Judy'' or ''TMWRNJ'' Richard Herring would routinely pronounce the acronym as if the 'M' and 'W' had changed places (TWMRNJ) rather than pronouncing it as is a BBC comedy television programme, written by and starr ...

'' (1998), '' Sir Bernard's Stately Homes'' (1999), '' Spaced'' (1999), '' Rock Profile'' (2000), ''

The Day the Music Died On February 3, 1959, American rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and "The Big Bopper" J. P. Richardson were all killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, together with pilot Roger Peterson. The event later becam ...

'' (2004–2007), '' Look Around You'' (2004) and '' Little Britain'' (2003–2005). He appeared in a minor role as a zombie in the comedy movie ''

Shaun of the Dead ''Shaun of the Dead'' is a 2004 zombie comedy film directed by Edgar Wright and written by Wright and Simon Pegg. Pegg stars as Shaun, a downtrodden salesman in London who is caught in a zombie apocalypse with his friend Ed ( Nick Frost). T ...

'' in 2004, and could also be heard on the zombies' 'commentary' track on the DVD release. More recently he has appeared in the

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 Talk radio, spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history fro ...

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imagination, imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, Paral ...

comedy ''

Nebulous ''Nebulous'' is a post-apocalyptic science fiction comedy radio show written by Graham Duff and produced by Ted Dowd from Baby Cow Productions; it is directed by Nicholas Briggs. The series premiered in the United Kingdom on BBC Radio 4. Se ...

'' (2005), '' Peacefully in their Sleeps'' on Radio 4 in 2007, '' The Peter Serafinowicz Show'' in 2007 and '' Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle'' in 2009 and 2014. He has also contributed material to programmes including ''The Impressionable Jon Culshaw'', '' Little Britain'', '' The Peter Serafinowicz Show'' and is a co-creator of the website "TV Dregs". In 2005, Putner took the starring role (as a

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. Messa ...

) in the 7th district section of the film ''

Paris, je t'aime ''Paris, je t'aime'' (; ''Paris, I love you'') is a 2006 anthology film starring an ensemble cast of actors of various nationalities. The two-hour film consists of eighteen short films set in different arrondissements (districts). The 22 directo ...

'' written and directed by Sylvain Chomet. The film opened the "

Un Certain Regard (, meaning 'a certain glance') is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's official selection. It is run at the Debussy, parallel to the competition for the . This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob. The section presents 20 films ...

" section of the

2006 Cannes Film Festival The 59th Cannes Film Festival was held from 17 to 28 May 2006. Twenty films from eleven countries were in competition for the Palme d'Or. The President of the Official selection Jury was Wong Kar-wai, the first Chinese director to preside over the ...

. From late 2005 until early 2007 Putner toured in the '' Little Britain Live'' show, and later appeared in Matt Lucas and

David Walliams David Edward Williams (born 20 August 1971), known professionally as David Walliams, is an English comedian, actor, writer, and television personality. He is best known for his work with Matt Lucas on the BBC sketch comedy series '' Little ...

' TV follow-up, '' Come Fly with Me''. In 2010 and 2011, Putner played the ill-fated Gerald "Jelly" Kelly in the ''

Only Fools and Horses ''Only Fools and Horses....'' is a British television sitcom created and written by John Sullivan (writer), John Sullivan. Seven series were originally broadcast on BBC One in the United Kingdom from 1981 to 1991, with sixteen sporadic Christmas ...

prequel A prequel is a literary, dramatic or cinematic work whose story precedes that of a previous work, by focusing on events that occur before the original narrative. A prequel is a work that forms part of a backstory to the preceding work. The term ...

trilogy, '' Rock & Chips'', written by John Sullivan. In 2013, he appeared in Kevin Eldon's sketch show, '' It's Kevin''. Also in 2013, Putner appeared in an episode of the second series of ''

Wizards vs Aliens ''Wizards vs Aliens'' is a British science fantasy television programme produced by BBC Cymru Wales and FremantleMedia Enterprises for CBBC and created by Russell T Davies and Phil Ford. The series focuses on the exploits of 16-year-old wizard ...

'' as a troll called Mervyn.

External links

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TV Dregs
{{DEFAULTSORT:Putner, Paul 1966 births Living people 20th-century English male actors 21st-century English male actors Alumni of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art English male comedians English male radio actors English male television actors Male actors from Sussex People from East Grinstead