Chris Langham
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Chris Langham (born 14 April 1949) is a British writer and comedian. He is most famous for playing presenter Roy Mallard in People Like Us, first on BBC Radio 4 and later on its transfer to television on BBC 2, where Mallard is almost entirely an unseen character. He subsequently created several spoof adverts in the same vein.
One of Langham's earliest breaks was as the sole British writer for The Muppet Show. He once appeared on the show as a "special guest star". The scheduled guest star (Richard Pryor) was unable to make it to the recording, and so a script was hastily written in which "Chris the Delivery Boy" must stand in for an absent celebrity. He appeared in the first series of Not the Nine O'Clock News and Alas Smith and Jones. In the latter series he played an ineffectual panel show host, a character which apparently inspired John Morton to create the character of Roy Mallard.
When Not The Nine O'Clock News first aired, he was one of the four team members, having equal status with Mel Smith, Pamela Stephenson, and Rowan Atkinson. However he was quickly replaced by Griff Rhys Jones, and in subsequent compilation repeats most of his contributions have been cut, giving the impression that he was not part of the original line-up. This impression not helped by the fact that the first series of the show has not been repeated, due to a belief in the BBC that the material was of a topical nature and would therefore not be suitable for transmission so long after the event.
On Radio 4, he narrated the series The Rapid Eye Movement, which starred Martin Freeman as Chester Bennington, in whose head the entire series took place. He also appeared in the magazine satire The Sunday Format.
Langham wrote the BBC 1 sitcom Kiss Me Kate, which he also appeared in along with Caroline Quentin and Amanda Holden. In 2003 he played George Orwell in a BBC docudrama entitled George Orwell - A Life In Pictures. He has also recently starred alongside co-writer Paul Whitehouse in Help on BBC2, and in the Armando Iannucci comedy The Thick of It. He is also a regular guest on The Heaven and Earth Show, and has appeared as a panellist on Iannucci's Radio 4 show The Armando Iannucci Charm Offensive.
He told actor Ken Campbell that he would find something without a name and give his name to it. Langham named the stalk on top of Berets the Langham, after himself.
External links
- Interview (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/1333978.stm) on BBC web site
- http://www.electromancer.com/showTrack.php?id=2d6cef72d1
- Profile (http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/talent/l/langham_chris.shtml) on BBC Comedy Guide
- Help (http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/articles/h/help_999050224.shtml) in BBC Comedy Guide