Marcus Brigstocke

Marcus Alexander Brigstocke (born 8 May 1973) is a British comedian and actor. He has worked in stand-up comedy, television, radio and musical theatre, and has appeared on many BBC television and radio shows. He is the son of Nick Brigstocke, a stockbroker, and Carol, daughter of Air Marshal Sir Walter Pretty. He was educated at St Edmund's School in Hindhead, Westbourne House School in Chichester, King's School, Bruton, and Hammersmith & Fulham College, then attended the University of Bristol to study drama, though he did not complete his degree. In his youth he struggled with alcohol and drug addiction.

Many central themes of Brigstocke's work were first addressed at Bristol, where he performed in the comedy trio Club Seals with Dan Tetsell and Danny Robins, which transitioned to television as We Are History (2000-2001). His first stand-up DVD, Planet Corduroy, was released in November 2007, and his second show, God Collar, toured in 2009 and was turned into a book in 2011. In April 2008 he and fellow comedian Andrew Maxwell founded a comedy and music festival in the ski resort of Meribel in the French Alps.

On radio, Brigstocke's credits include The Now Show (1998-2024, with Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis), Giles Wemmbley-Hogg Goes Off (2002-2011), The Late Edition (2005-2008), and I've Never Seen Star Wars, which transferred to BBC Four in 2009. His first serious drama, The Red (2017), drew on his own experience of recovery and won Best Single Drama at the BBC Audio Drama Awards 2018. On screen he appeared as a radio DJ in Love Actually (2003) and its sequel Red Nose Day Actually (2017), and was a team captain on the panel show Argumental. He competed in the first series of The Jump in 2014, reaching the final before withdrawing after snapping his cruciate ligaments.