Danny Wallace (humorist)
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| Danny Wallace | |
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| Born | Daniel Frederick Wallace November 16, 1976 Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom |
| Website | www.dannywallace.com |
Daniel Frederick Wallace (born 16 November 1976) is a British documentary comedian, writer, television and radio presenter on XFM, living in London. His notable works include the book Join Me and the TV series How to Start Your Own Country.
Wallace was born in Dundee, Scotland and grew up in Loughborough and Bath, England. He began writing reviews for video game magazines at the age of 13. At 18 he started writing comedy, mainly through the magazine Comedy Review. He specialised in radio production at the University of Westminster. As a journalist, Wallace has worked for The Guardian, The Independent and other publications.
At 22, he became the youngest BBC producer. He was part of the production team behind British Comedy Award-winning Dead Ringers, the critically-acclaimed cult hit The Mighty Boosh, and Ross Noble Goes Global.
Although Wallace is a relative newcomer to television presenting, in the past few years he has had his own BBC2 series, and hosted some of the BBC's flagship prime-time shows — including Horizon for BBC2 and Test the Nation for BBC1, as well as hosting Sky's Conspiracies... series.
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[edit] Books
In 1999, Wallace challenged comedian Dave Gorman, who at the time was his flatmate, to find 54 other people called Dave Gorman ("one for every card in the deck, including the Jokers"). Wallace accompanied Gorman on his quest and the men created Are You Dave Gorman?, an award-winning comedy stage show about what happened during their journey.[1] A BBC series, also co-written and co-produced by Wallace, followed, as did a book, written by both men.
In 2003, Wallace's book Join Me was published. The book explains how he "started a 'cult'" (or rather, a "collective") called Join Me. The movement is now generally referred to as the Karma Army, although members are still typically "Joinees". He became a minor celebrity in Belgium whilst on his quest for Joinees. While on a book tour through America, Wallace was dubbed a 'Generation X legend' by the Wisconsin State Journal [2].
Wallace next wrote a short book called Random Acts of Kindness: 365 Ways To Make the World A Better Place, with the help of submissions from Joinees. It includes many humorous Random Acts of Kindness (RAoK) ideas, such as "Contradict Demeaning Graffiti", and "Hide a surprise under someone's pillow. (Horses' heads are discouraged.)"
Wallace's second solo book, Yes Man was published in July 2005. In it, he describes how he spent six months "saying Yes where once would have said No", to make his life more interesting and positive. In this book he shows the tribulations and mischief that he got up to while he said yes to any question or proposal.
A film adaptation of Yes Man is in development with Warner Bros. and will star Jim Carrey . It is set for a 2009 release.[3]
Danny Wallace and the Centre of the Universe was published in 2006. It is linked with World Book Day which in 2006 was on Thursday 2nd March. It tells the story of Wallace's trip to Idaho, to visit a manhole cover in a small town, whose residents have proclaimed it the centre of the universe. The cover identifies it as a "Quick Read"; the price and length of the book have been curbed in order to encourage people who may not often read books to purchase it.
Wallace's next book, Friends Like These, is due to be published on 3 July 2008, and tells the story of how he spent a summer trying to track down his old school friends,[4].
[edit] Television and radio
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This article or section is missing citations or needs footnotes. Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (October 2007) |
Wallace began television presenting in 2004. In 2005, Wallace presented a documentary comedy, How to Start Your Own Country, in which he started his own micronation – "Lovely" – in his London flat. Beginning late August 2005 he co-presented on BBC One's Saturday night show He's Having a Baby with Davina McCall, which ran at the same time as his BBC Two series, How to Start Your Own Country. The latter won two BAFTAs in early 2006.
Wallace contributed ideas to and appeared in the hidden camera show World Shut Your Mouth. He has presented a few shows for Sky including the first series of Conspiracies..., Secrets of the CIA and Danny Wallace's Hoax Files.
He also took part in Carol Vorderman's Big Brain Game, shown on Sky One, and once came second on an episode of The Weakest Link and came third out of the celebrity guests on an episode of Test the Nation in 2005.
In 2006 he made a short foray into acting with a small non-speaking role in The IT Crowd, a Channel 4 sitcom. He presented a new entertainment quiz for the BBC called School's Out, in which celebrities are quizzed on topics they learned at school. It first aired on BBC One (except in Scotland) on 5 April 2006, and a second series followed in 2007. The second series has been promoted to prime time Saturday night. Guests include Graham Norton, Jo Brand, Adrian Edmondson, Patrick Kielty, Duncan James, and Dominic Wood.
On 28 July 2006, Wallace (whose wife, a TV producer, has worked on Big Brother) made a guest appearance on Big Brother's Little Brother pronouncing his dislike for Spiral, and Michael.
On 2 September 2006 Wallace became co-presenter of Test the Nation with Anne Robinson, replacing Phillip Schofield.
He also presented an episode of Horizon that aired on the 10 October 2006, in which Wallace tried to prove that chimps are people too. He was the first person in 43 years to be asked to front an edition of BBC2's flagship science programme.
Wallace presented the new series of reality show Castaway on both BBC One. The series was live from Great Barrier Island in New Zealand for three months, beginning 9 March 2007.
In 4 January 2008 Danny appeared on a celebrity spin-off episode of the BBC's Mastermind. His specialist subject was the Ghostbusters films.
On 9 February 2008, Wallace started a weekly show at 10am-2pm on Saturday Mornings at the radio station, Xfm.[5]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Comedy CV, Dave Gorman
- ^ Simon & Schuster, "Yes Man (Trade Paperback) - Praise"
- ^ Danny Wallace personal website, "Jack Black - He Say Yes!", June 4, 2005
- ^ Amazon.com, Friends Like These will be published on 3 July 2008
- ^ Danny Wallace Joins Xfm. XFM. Retrieved on 2008-01-09.
[edit] External links
- Danny Wallace homepage – further details about BBC projects and books.
- Danny Wallace at the Internet Movie Database.
