Laura Madalene Solon

Laura Madalene Solon is an English screenwriter, comedian, and actress, and winner of the 2005 Perrier Comedy Award. She was the second woman to win the award as a solo performer, after Jenny Eclair in 1995. Solon was raised in Great Kimble near Aylesbury and attended Downe House School, followed by Worcester College, Oxford, where she received a scholarship to read English and began writing and performing in the Oxford Revue.

Solon tried stand-up comedy but found character comedy suited her better. In 2005 she won the Perrier Award for her one-woman Edinburgh Fringe show Kopfraper's Syndrome: One Man and His Incredible Mind, in which she played eight different characters; the show secured a run at London's Soho Theatre in November 2005, and the prize included 7,500 pounds. The BBC and Channel 4 were keen to acquire her, and in April 2006 the BBC announced she had signed to develop radio and TV projects. The first series of Laura Solon: Talking and Not Talking, a sketch and character comedy series, ran on BBC Radio 4 in 2007, with further series in 2008 and 2009.

She appeared in Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse's sketch show Ruddy Hell! It's Harry and Paul, the ITV2 sketch show Laura, Ben and Him (2008), and Al Murray's Multiple Personality Disorder. Alongside Tony Hawks and Angus Deayton she appeared in the feature film Playing the Moldovans at Tennis, released in 2012, and in 2011 she was a player on the BBC Two improvisational show Fast and Loose. As a screenwriter, Solon adapted Office Christmas Party, had original screenplays optioned by Bluegrass Films, wrote episodes for Hot in Cleveland, and her 2010 short film Tooty's Wedding, co-written with Ben Willbond, was screened at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.