Comedian, Political Satirist, and
Host of Last Week Tonight on HBO
John Oliver is an Emmy and Writer’s Guild Award winning writer. His new HBO show Last Week Tonight debuted in 2014, presenting a satirical look at the week in news, politics and current events. Since 2006 John has been a correspondent and guest host on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He first came to prominence as a cutting-edge political stand up in the UK, with a string of television appearances and sold-out solo shows at the Edinburgh Festival.
Stand-Up Comedy Specials
Having made the move to America to work on The Daily Show, John won the Breakout Award at the Aspen Comedy Festival in 2007 and went on to write and star in his first hour long Comedy Central stand up special John Oliver: Terrifying Times in April 2008. Such was its success that John has now hosted four seasons of his own stand up series for Comedy Central, John Oliver’s New York Stand Up Show, an hour long show featuring a hand-picked selection of his favourite comedians. Guest headliners have included Marc Maron, Hannibal Buress, Janeane Garofalo, Chris Hardwick and Deon Cole.
Podcast
With long-time collaborator Andy Zaltzman, John co-writes and co-presents the hugely popular weekly satirical podcast The Bugle. Its success has grown significantly since its inception in 2007 and now pulls in over 500,000 downloads a week. John and Andy previously wrote and starred in three series of The Department (BBC Radio 4) alongside Chris Addison, as well as two series of BBC Radio 4 show Political Animal, based on their satirical live stand-up show.
Television and Film
He has a regular guest role on NBC’s sitcom Community, is the voice of Vanity Smurf in The Smurfs movie and its sequel The Smurfs 2, and has recently appeared in The Simpsons as Marge and Homer’s next-door neighbour, Booth Wilkes-John.