Audio Comedy - JHSTTN - S7

Audio Comedy - JHSTTN - S7

Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation

1 How to Feel 3 Apr 2007 Gordon Kennedy, Miranda Richardson
2 How to Believe 10 Apr 2007 Alison Steadman, Ewan Bailey
3 How to Die 17 Apr 2007 Pauline McLynn, Paul B Davies
4 How to Look 24 Apr 2007 Juliet Stevenson, Paul B Davies

Jeremy James Hardy (17 July 1961 – 1 February 2019) was an English comedian. Born and raised in Hampshire, Hardy studied at the University of Southampton and began his stand-up career in the 1980s, going on to win the Perrier Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1988. He is best known for his appearances on radio panel shows such as the News Quiz and I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.

Early life
Hardy was born in Aldershot, Hampshire, the fifth and youngest child of rocket scientist Donald D. Hardy (1925–2016) and Sheila Stagg (1924–2012). He attended Farnham College and studied modern history and politics at the University of Southampton. He subsequently failed to obtain a place on a journalism course, and considered becoming an actor or poet.

Career
Hardy started scriptwriting before turning to stand-up comedy in London in the early 1980s, funded in part by the Enterprise Allowance Scheme. He won the Perrier Comedy Award in 1988 at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

He made his television debut in the late 1980s, featuring regularly as Jeremy the boom operator in the Rory Bremner-led comedy show Now – Something Else on BBC Two, along with guest appearances on programmes including the BBC One talk show Wogan. He went on to feature in various comedy shows including Blackadder Goes Forth (1989), and presented a television documentary about the political background to the English Civil War as well as an edition of Top of the Pops in 1996. He was one of the two team captains on the BBC Two game show If I Ruled the World that ran for two series in 1998–1999. Kit Hollerbach featured alongside him in the BBC radio sitcoms Unnatural Acts and At Home with the Hardys.

Hardy worked extensively on BBC Radio 4, particularly on The News Quiz, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue and his long-running series of monologues Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation. His excruciatingly off-key singing was a long-running joke on the radio panel show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue — on which he appeared regularly — as well as the spin-off radio series You'll Have Had Your Tea: The Doings of Hamish and Dougal. He appeared in the Radio 4 sitcom Linda Smith's A Brief History of Timewasting, and he also appeared as a panellist on the first and second series of QI. His experiences in Palestine during the Israeli army incursions of 2002 became the subject of a feature documentary Jeremy Hardy vs. the Israeli Army (2003), directed by Leila Sansour. A four-episode series entitled Jeremy Hardy Feels It was broadcast on Radio 4 in December 2017 to January 2018.

Hardy wrote a regular column for The Guardian until 2001. He then wrote a column in the London Evening Standard's magazine. His first book, When Did You Last See Your Father, was published by Methuen in 1992. My Family and Other Strangers, based on his research into his family history, was published by Ebury Press on 4 March 2010.

An anthology of Hardy's writing, Jeremy Hardy Speaks Volumes, was published in February 2020. It was edited by his wife Katie Barlow and his long-time radio producer David Tyler.