Ria Lina

Ria Lina is a British comedian, screenwriter and film director. She has appeared on television and radio programmes including Yesterday, Today & The Day Before, Mock the Week, Steph's Packed Lunch, The Now Show, The News Quiz, and Have I Got News for You. In 2003, she won an Ethnic Multicultural Media Academy award for Best Comedian. Lina's mother is from the Philippines and her father from Germany, and she attended an American school in the Netherlands from the age of 14.

Before comedy, Lina pursued an academic career, earning a BSc in pathology from the University of St Andrews, an MSc in forensic science from London South Bank University and a PhD in virology from University College London. In 2003, she was a runner-up at the first Funny Women Awards. She has taken six shows to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, including School of Riason (2014), which was nominated for the Amused Moose Laughter Awards and contained one of Dave's Top 10 Jokes of the Fringe. Her show Dear Daughter (2016) won the Best Comedy award at the Greater Manchester Fringe, and her other shows include Taboo Raider (2017), Thpethial (2013) and It's Not Easy Being Yellow (2012).

Lina's broader work includes voicing the character Perun in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and narrating the full-cast audiobook of the cli-fi adventure MOOJAG and the Auticode Secret. She appeared in and won an episode of the 21st series of Celebrity Mastermind, broadcast in January 2023, and was one of Alexander Armstrong's co-hosts on Pointless in 2023. Since 2022 she has appeared as a guest co-host of The Bugle podcast. Lina is autistic, something she only became aware of in adulthood.