Jason Manford

Jason John Manford (born 26 May 1981) is an English comedian, singer, presenter and actor. Born in Salford, the son of Sharon and courtroom stenographer Ian Manford, he grew up with his four siblings in the Whalley Range area of Manchester and attended Chorlton High School. While working as a glass collector at a local pub, he became interested in comedy after watching the likes of Eddie Izzard, Peter Kay and Johnny Vegas perform at the local comedy club. Kay recommended he undertake an HND in media and performance at the University of Salford, which Kay himself had done, and Manford was accepted despite not having the required A-level grades.

Manford was a team captain on the Channel 4 panel show 8 Out of 10 Cats from 2007 until 2010, taking over from Dave Spikey. He has presented television shows for the BBC and ITV including Comedy Rocks (2010-2011), The One Show (2010), Show Me the Funny (2011), A Question of Sport: Super Saturday (2014), Bigheads (2017) and Children in Need (2022), and was one of four judges on ITV's Starstruck (2022). He played Marty in the 2015 BBC drama Ordinary Lies, became the voice of Daisy's dad in the cartoon Daisy & Ollie from 2017, came second as the Hedgehog on The Masked Singer in 2020, and joined the cast of BBC's Waterloo Road as headteacher Steve Savage in 2024.

As a stand-up, Manford launched his "Turning into My Dad" tour in July 2010, toured "First-World Problems" in 2013, "Muddle Class" until the end of 2018 and "Like Me" from 2020 to 2021. He has also starred in West End and UK stage musicals such as Sweeney Todd, The Producers, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Guys and Dolls, Curtains and The Wizard of Oz. Coming from a family of singers and musicians, he won the 2011 TV competition Born to Shine and released an album of show tunes.