Marek Ryan Larwood (born 2 June 1976) is an English comedian and actor. He is best known for the

BBC Three BBC Three is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was first launched on 9 February 2003 with programmes targeting 16 to 34-year-olds, cov ...

sketch show '' Rush Hour'' and for being one third of the comedy trio '' We Are Klang''.

Early life

Born in

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the Episcopal see, See of ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the Nort ...

, Larwood lived in

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

before moving to the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a Counties of England, county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the List of islands of England#Largest islands, largest and List of islands of England#Mo ...

. His forename is of Polish origin, as his mother had seen a 1975 documentary about a Polish schoolboy with a heart defect, who was looking forward to an operation. The operation was unsuccessful, and Marek's mother thought to name her son after the Polish schoolboy.

Career

Stand-up comedy

Larwood won the Laughing Horse New Act of The Year competition in 2003. He is part of the comic trio We Are Klang, along with Steve Hall and Greg Davies. They took their show ''Klangbang'' to the 2006

Edinburgh Fringe The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 dif ...

festival and were nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Awards.Bunbury, Stephanie (2007)
Insults in flight as Klang mixes it
, ''

The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territo ...

'', 4 April 2007, retrieved 2010-11-22

Television

Larwood has appeared in the sitcom '' Extras'' and the BBC sci-fi sitcom '' Hyperdrive''. He featured as a main cast member of the first series of the

CBBC CBBC (initialised as Children's BBC and also known as the CBBC Channel) is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast children's television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is also the bran ...

show '' Sorry, I've Got No Head'', but was absent from the second, meaning some of his characters were recast. He made a surprise return for the third series, but did not reclaim his original roles. In 2007, he appeared as Giacomo Casanova and Milo of Croton in CBBC's ''Ed and Oucho''. Larwood appeared in the 2008

ITV2 ITV2 is a British free-to-air television channel owned by ITV Digital Channels, a division of ITV plc. It was launched on 7 December 1998. For a number of years, it had the largest audience share after the five analogue terrestrial station ...

sketch show ''Laura, Ben & Him'', with Laura Solon and Ben Willbond.Plunkett, John (2007)
ITV2 picks up Solon sketch show
, ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide ...

'', 10 October 2007, retrieved 2010-11-22 He appeared in the sitcom adaptation of '' We Are Klang'', the sketch show '' Rush Hour'', and the

improv Improv may refer to: *Improvisation, an act of spontaneous invention ** Improvisational theatre (includes improvisational comedy) **Musical improvisation Musical improvisation (also known as musical extemporization) is the creative activity of i ...

game show '' Fast and Loose''. From 2012 to 2014, he was a member of the

hidden camera comedy show ''

Impractical Jokers UK ''Impractical Jokers UK'' is a British reality television series that first aired in the United Kingdom in 2012 on BBC Three. The series is based on the American hidden camera-practical joke reality television series ''Impractical Jokers ...

''. He plays pub regular Lee in

Romesh Ranganathan Jonathan Romesh Ranganathan (born 27 March 1978), is an English actor and comedian. He is known for his deadpan and often self-deprecating comedy. Ranganathan has made numerous appearances on television comedy panel shows, and in 2016 he co-p ...

's sitcom '' The Reluctant Landlord''. Larwood appeared in ITV2's celebrity comedy show '' CelebAbility'', alongside comedian Iain Stirling and Scarlett Moffat.

Films

Larwood made a

cameo appearance A cameo role, also called a cameo appearance and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief appearance of a well-known person in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking ones, and are commonly ei ...

as an amateur magician in the 2007 film '' Magicians''.

Podcasts

Larwood presented a weekly podcast on classic and current films, '' Film Fandango,'' initially with fellow comedian David Reed and occasional guest host

Danielle Ward Danielle Ward (born 9 October 1978) is a British stand-up comedian and writer. Career Ward worked as an economic researcher at London's South Korean Embassy before she became a comedian. In 2006, Ward won the '' Time Outs Critic's Choice aw ...

, then with just Reed (when Ward left to have a baby), and then finally on his own.

Credits

Television

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Larwood, Marek English stand-up comedians English male television actors 1976 births Living people Actors from Norwich English male comedians People from Muswell Hill