Tim Key Biography

Fast Facts

• Won the Edinburgh Comedy Award at the 2009 Edinburgh Festival Fringe
• Was nominated for a Malcolm Hardee Award for Comic Originality
• Graduated from Sheffield University after studying Russian there
• Joined the Cambridge Footlights after graduating from Sheffield University, where he met several comics who he formed the Cowards sketch group with
• Quote: "I have a lot of material, not all of it very good, but I've got a lot of it․"
• Quote: "I now have about 300 laminated pornographic playing cards with poems on them․ Which is a pretty poor reflection of the direction my life is going․"
• Created a non-tradition stand-up comedy style that combines poetry, short films, and strange challenges
• Though he once read his poems out of notebooks during performances, when his collection of notebooks grew too cumbersome, he switched to reading them off of laminated pornographic playing cards
• Released an album called "Tim Key․ With a String Quartet․ On a Boat․" In 2010
• Wrote "25 Poems, 3 Recipes and 32 Other Suggestions (An Inventory)" and "Instructions, Guidelines, Tutelage, Suggestions, Other Suggestions and Examples Etc․: An Attempted Book By Tim Key․ (And Conversations/ Descriptions/ A Piece About A Moth․"