Mitch Benn
Mitch Benn | |
---|---|
Birth name | Mitchell John Benn[1] |
Born | Liverpool, England | 20 January 1970
Medium | Stand-up/singer |
Nationality | British |
Years active | 1994–present |
Genres | Comedy rock comedy |
Website | http://www.mitchbenn.com |
Mitchell John Benn (born 20 January 1970) is an English comedian, author and musician known for his
Benn has performed at several music festivals, and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. He has also released seven studio albums. His first science fiction novel, entitled Terra, was published in July 2013 by Gollancz.[3][4]
Early life
Mitch Benn was born in
Radio and television
Benn has often performed on
On television Mitch Benn appeared singing a song about the
Mitch has performed stand-up on Live at Jongleurs and The Comedy Store for the
Benn regularly plays live shows at clubs and festivals in
In November 2010 he released "I'm Proud of the BBC", a song listing many of the corporation's achievements.[8] The track was available for download only and made it to 11th in the Independent Singles Chart.[9]
In September 2013 he took over the role of Zaphod Beeblebrox in the touring production of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Live Radio Show".
In Autumn 2020 Mitch was a member of the Walruses in Series 16 of the BBC Two quiz show Only Connect alongside actress and writer Emma Kennedy and Mastermind finalist Dan Adler. His team reached the quarter-final round but were eliminated in the 17th episode of the series broadcast on January 11, 2021.
During the 26th series of The Now Show broadcast between March and April 2009 Benn launched an attempt to increase his follows. Annoyed at the fact that only a few people followed him on Twitter, Benn planned to make himself the "King of Twitter" by getting the show's 1.5 million listeners to follow his account and therefore have more followers than Stephen Fry, who he claimed was the current king.[10] Within a week of his announcement, the number of people following Benn more than tripled, from about 1,200 followers to just under 4,000.[11] Later in the same series, Benn performed a song expressing his anger that Coldplay beat him into having more followers than Fry first, making remarks that it was not the band themselves posting messages and that as the band has four members, the number of followers should have been divided by four. Benn also mentioned that some of his followers were worried that he was becoming too obsessed with Twitter.[12] In the last episode of the series, Benn wrote what he claimed was his final Twitter song, which specially featured Fry telling Benn that if he renounced his claim as King of Twitter, Fry would make him "Viceroy of Facebook", which Benn did. Benn also referenced the passing of the one million mark on the site.[13]
In October 2009, "The History of the World Through Twitter", co-written by Benn and his fellow Now Show presenter Jon Holmes, was published by Prion Books.
Together with his wife, Benn runs a Twitter feed for their daughter, Astrid (who was four years old at the time it was created), "Stuff Astrid Says". They have so far declined to create a Twitter feed for the family dog "Rowlf", despite requests.
Albums
Mitch has released eight CDs to date: The Unnecessary Mitch Benn (1998), a collection of favourite live songs, recorded on a Walkman carried in his pocket at various gigs that year; Radio Face (2002), including material previously heard on Radio 2 and Radio 4; and, with the Distractions,
In October 2007, a fifth album, The Official Edinburgh Bootleg 2007 (swiftly dubbed "The Brown Album" because of its mock brown paper cover art), recorded on the final night of his show at the Edinburgh Fringe, was made available exclusively to those who attended his autumn 2007 tour.
In March 2008, Benn released the single "Happy Birthday War", to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War, with an accompanying video.
The release of his sixth album, Sing Like an Angel, coincided with his autumn 2008 tour of the same name. The title track, featuring Rick Wakeman on piano, was released as a single on iTunes on 1 September 2008. A video was produced to accompany the single.
In October 2009, Benn released his seventh album, Where Next?. His seventh studio album, Breaking Strings, was released in March 2012. It features "I'm Proud of the BBC", "I Love My Phone", "The Library" and "Song for Europe".[14]
Mitch Benn uses and endorses Line 6 guitars and amplification. His current on-stage rig consists of a Variax 700 (replacing the Variax 500 as seen on the cover of Crimes Against Music) played through a PodxtLive.
Awards
In 1995 Mitch Benn won the Best New Comedian competition at the Glastonbury Festival, and has played there every year since.
In May 2007 he won BBC Radio Merseyside's "Scouseology" award for his work on radio.[1]
In October 2007 he was awarded "Personality of the Year" at the final
In January 2008, Benn was listed among the "Scouserati", a list of 365 culturally significant Liverpudlians published by the Liverpool Echo to commemorate the beginning of Liverpool's tenure as the European Capital of Culture.[1]
Weight loss
Having always struggled with obesity (a previous slimming attempt in 2008 having been covered in his blog
Discography
Albums
- The Unnecessary Mitch Benn (1998)
- Radio Face (2002)
- Too Late To Cancel (2004)
- Crimes Against Music (2005)
- The Official Edinburgh Bootleg 2007 (2007)
- Sing Like An Angel (2008)
- Where Next? (2009)
- Breaking Strings (2012)
Singles
- "Everything Sounds Like Coldplay Now" (2005) (#250 UK Singles Chart)
- "Happy Birthday War" (2008)
- "I'm Proud of the BBC" (2010)
References
- ^ a b c d "The Scouserati – the 366 most influential Scousers on the planet". Liverpool Echo. 1 January 2008. Retrieved 7 September 2008.
- ^ "Mitch Benn". Woman's Hour. 27 December 2011. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
- ^ "Gollancz Signs Debut SF Novel From Mitch Benn". Gollancz. 1 February 2012. Retrieved 6 June 2013.
- ^ Barnett, Dave (20 July 2013). "Review: Terra, By Mitch Benn". The Independent. Archived from the original on 15 May 2022. Retrieved 27 July 2016.
- ^ Bennett, Steve. "Now Show axes Jon Holmes and Mitch Benn : News 2016 : Chortle : The UK Comedy Guide". www.chortle.co.uk.
- ^ "the-void.co.uk/comedy review of "Mitch Benn Music Club" from Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2007".
- ^ "Home". The Distraction Club. Archived from the original on 7 July 2015. Retrieved 6 July 2015.
- ^ Toynbee, Polly (2 January 2012). "How the badly maimed BBC can stand up to parasitic Sky". The Guardian.
- ^ Bruce Dessau (18 October 2010). "Mr Benn's BBC Song". This is London. Archived from the original on 6 April 2012. Retrieved 14 October 2011.
- ^ "Series 26, Episode 3". The Now Show. Season 26. Episode 3. 20 March 2009.
- ^ "Series 26, Episode 4". The Now Show. Season 26. Episode 4. 27 March 2009.
- ^ "Series 26, Episode 6". The Now Show. Season 26. Episode 6. 10 April 2009.
- ^ "Series 26, Episode 8". The Now Show. Season 26. Episode 8. 24 April 2009.
- ^ Stephenson, John-Paul (10 February 2012). "CD Review: Mitch Benn & The Distractions – Breaking Strings". Giggle Beats. Retrieved 31 July 2012.
- ^ "Mitch Benn's blog". Mitch Benn. Retrieved 7 July 2011.
- ^ "Mitch Benn on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved 7 July 2011.