Harry Enfield (born May 30, 1961)
is an English comedian educated at the University of
York who quickly came to prominence after appearing
on Channel 4's Saturday Live in a number of different
personae created with Paul Whitehouse. These quickly
entered the national consciousness.
Amongst these characters was the Greek kebab-seller
with markedly fractured English, "Stavros",
a profound supporter of the football club Arsenal F.C.,
which he demonstrated by frequently uttering the phrase "Up
the Arse".
His other popular character "Loadsamoney" spawned
a hit single in 1988 and sell out live tour. As a foil
to "Loadsamoney" Enfield and Whitehouse created
the Geordie "Bugger-All-Money" and in 1988
Enfield appeared as both characters during the 'Nelson
Mandela Birthday Tribute Concert' at Wembley Stadium.
In time Whitehouse and Enfield became disturbed that
the "Loadsamoney" was being seen as a positive
image and killed him off. In 1989 Enfield realised
a personal project with the spoof of British Theatre
Knights slumming in the film industry "Sir Norbert
Smith: A Life".
Before that he provided voices for the British satirical
puppet show Spitting Image.
After Saturday Live, Enfield moved to the BBC where
he developed his sketch show, "Harry Enfield's
Television Programme", and later Harry Enfield
and Chums with fellow comedians Paul Whitehouse (later
of Fast Show fame) and Kathy Burke.
This created more nationally recognised characters
such as "Mr. and Mrs. Loadsamoney", "Tory
Boy", "Smashie and Nicey", "Wayne
Slob" and "Annoying Kid Brother" who
grew into "Kevin The Teenager". Two characters
played by Enfield and Jon Glover, Mr Cholmondley-Warner
and Grayson appeared for several years both in the
series' mock 1950s information film sketches, and in
television commercials for the first of the privatised
UK telephone companies, Mercury Communications.
In 2000 Enfield appeared in a his first leading film
role playing "Kevin" alongside Kathy Burke
who played the character's male friend "Perry" -
roles originally created for the television series
- in "Kevin & Perry Go Large". The film
charted the pair's attempt to become professional DJs
by travelling to the nightclubs of Ibiza and molesting
their idol DJ "Eyeball Paul", played by Rhys
Ifans, whilst gaining love but losing virginity along
the way. |