Rhona Cameron (born 27 September 1965) is a Scottish

comedian A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing Amusement is the state of experiencing humorous and entertaining events or situations while the person or a ...

, writer and TV presenter. She rose to prominence via the stand-up comedy circuit, and was a regular on British television in the 1990s.

Television career

In 1992, she won ''

So You Think You're Funny So You Think You're Funny? (SYTYF) is an annual stand-up comedy competition for new acts. The competition began in 1988 in the United Kingdom. The finals are held every August at The Gilded Balloon during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Past wi ...

''. She presented the

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

game show ''Russian Roulette'' and the

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

show '' Gaytime TV''. Cameron co-wrote '' Rhona'' with her former partner Linda Gibson. ''Rhona'' was a

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ne ...

which starred Cameron as Rhona Campbell, a lesbian Scot living alone in London, who has problems similar to those of her straight friends. Only one six-episode series was made, broadcast in July and August 2000 on

BBC2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

. Cameron was a participant in the first series of '' I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!''. In June 2009, she appeared on ''

Celebrity Wife Swap ''Wife Swap'' is an American reality television program that was first broadcast on ABC in 2004 based on the British show with the same name. In the program, two families, usually from different social classes and lifestyles, swap wives/mothers ...

'' with her partner, Suran Dickson. She is the narrator for the

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

series ''Find It, Fix It, Flog It''. In January 2022, she was announced as one of several comedians on GB News' newspaper preview show ''Headliners''.

Writing

She is the author of ''Nineteen Seventy-Nine: A Big Year in a Small Town'', a book about growing up as a lesbian in the small fishing town of

Musselburgh Musselburgh (; sco, Musselburrae; gd, Baile nam Feusgan) is the largest settlement in East Lothian, Scotland, on the coast of the Firth of Forth, east of Edinburgh city centre. It has a population of . History The name Musselburgh is Ol ...

East Lothian East Lothian (; sco, East Lowden; gd, Lodainn an Ear) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, as well as a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area. The county was called Haddingtonshire until 1921. In 1975, the histo ...

, Scotland, detailing about her teenage years and father's illness. Her debut novel ''The Naked Drinking Club'' was published by Ebury Press in 2007.

Other performances

Rhona appeared as the first female Narrator in some performances of The Rocky Horror Show UK tour 2003. She has also appeared on

Lily Savage's Blankety Blank ''Blankety Blank'' is a British comedy game show which started in 1979 and is still running today, albeit with some sizeable gaps. The original series ran from 18 January 1979 to 12 March 1990 on BBC1, hosted first by Terry Wogan from 1979 un ...

. Since 2015, she has provided the voice of Bonnie in the video game ''

Payday 2 ''Payday 2'' is a cooperative first-person shooter video game developed by Overkill Software and published by 505 Games. The game is a sequel to 2011's '' Payday: The Heist''. It was released in August 2013 for Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox ...

''.

Personal life

Cameron was born in

Dundee Dundee (; sco, Dundee; gd, Dùn Dè or ) is Scotland's fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2016 was , giving Dundee a population density of 2,478/km2 or ...

and is adopted; her birth mother (whose name Cameron keeps secret) was from

North Shields North Shields () is a town in the Borough of North Tyneside in Tyne and Wear, England. It is north-east of Newcastle upon Tyne and borders nearby Wallsend and Tynemouth. Since 1974, it has been in the North Tyneside borough of Tyne and Wea ...

and her biological father is shown as "unknown" on the adoption records. She attended Musselburgh Grammar School. Cameron previously had relationships with comedian

Sue Perkins Susan Elizabeth Perkins (born 22 September 1969) is an English actress, broadcaster, comedian, presenter and writer. Originally coming to prominence through her comedy partnership with Mel Giedroyc in ''Mel and Sue'', she has since become best ...

and with writer Linda Gibson.

Activism

Cameron is a

Patron Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows on another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings, popes, and the wealthy have provided to artists su ...

of both

LGBT Youth Scotland LGBT Youth Scotland is a Scottish List of youth organizations, youth organisation dedicated to the inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) young people from 13 to 25 year of age in Scotland. It was established in November 1989 ...

and

Pride London Pride in London is an annual LGBT pride festival and parade held each summer in London, England. The event, which was formerly run by Pride London, is sometimes referred to as London Pride. Pride in London celebrates the diversity of the LGBTQ ...

(the UK's largest

lesbian A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

bisexual Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, or to more than one gender. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, whi ...

and

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

Pride event). She has stated that she supports the

Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; sco, Scots National Pairty, gd, Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic political party in Scotland. The SNP supports and campaigns for Scottish independence from ...

and 'the case for Independence'.

References

External links

*
Rhona Cameron profile Chortle, including tour dates

Rhona Cameron at Edinburgh Comedy Festival
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cameron, Rhona 1965 births Edinburgh Comedy Festival I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! (British TV series) participants British lesbian actresses Scottish lesbian actresses Lesbian comedians LGBT broadcasters from the United Kingdom LGBT entertainers from Scotland Living people People educated at Musselburgh Grammar School People from East Lothian People from Musselburgh Scottish people of English descent Scottish adoptees Scottish stand-up comedians Scottish women comedians Scottish women writers Actresses from Dundee 20th-century Scottish comedians 21st-century Scottish comedians 20th-century Scottish women