Richard Ayoade is a British-Nigerian comedian, actor, writer and director. He first appeared in the Channel 4 sitcom The IT Crowd (2006–2013) for which he won the 2014 BAFTA for Best Male Comedy Performance.
Ayoade was the President of the Footlights club at Cambridge University. He performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2000 and wrote the television series Man to Man with Dean Learner (2006) and Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace (2004). He appeared in the series Nathan Barley (2005) and The Mighty Boosh (2004–2007). After directing music videos, he wrote and directed the 2010 film Submarine and co-starred in The Watch (2012) and then directed his second film The Double (2013).
Ayoade has appeared in panel shows The Big Fat Quiz of the Year, Was It Something I Said? (2013) and presented the factual programmes Gadget Man (2013–2015), Travel Man (2015–2019), and The Crystal Maze (2017–2020). He has been the voice behind animated characters in The Boxtrolls (2014), Early Man (2018), The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019), Soul (2020), The Bad Guys (2022), and TV series Strange Hill High (2013–2014), Apple & Onion (2018–2021), and Krapopolis (2023–present).
Ayoade has written books including the children’s book The Book That No One Wanted to Read (2022).
Refs: Richard Ayoade – Wikipedia; Richard Ayoade – Biography – IMDb
Photo credit: Yusuf Laher (dudephotography) – https://www.flickr.com/photos/dudephotography/5510600348
