Hiroshi Shimizu

Hiroshi Shimizu, born January 21, 1966 in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, is a Japanese comedian, actor and voice actor. He began his career with the theatre troupe Yamanote Jijousha, an offshoot of Waseda University's drama circle, from 1985 to 1994, and later worked with the Ishii Kozo talent office before going freelance. Since the mid 2010s Shimizu has focused on stand-up comedy in the Western sense, co-founding the Japan Standup Comedy Association with fellow comedian Zenjiro in 2016 and later serving as its chairman. He streams a solo comedy show from his home attic on his YouTube channel, "Yaneura no Orange" (Orange in the Attic). Performing in English as well as Japanese, Shimizu has taken his act abroad, appearing multiple times at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with shows including "Japanese TerminatoL" (2012), "Japanese 'Locky'" (2013) and "Japanese Samurai Don Quixote Challenging Against English Giant Windmills!" (2014 to 2015), and performing at the Avignon and Grenoble theatre festivals in France and at Italian theatre festivals. In 2012 he was featured in The Times as one of a group of successful international comedians at the Fringe.