Julian Dutton

Julian Dutton
Dutton in 2015
Born	London, England
Nationality	British
Occupation(s)	Comedian, screenwriter

Julian Dutton is an English writer and performer. He is principally known for television and radio, whose work has won a British Comedy Award, a BAFTA, and a Radio Academy Gold Award for Best Comedy. He is the author of seven books.^[1]

He is the co-creator and co-writer of the BBC2 comedy series Pompidou starring Matt Lucas, the first visual comedy TV series to be made since Rowan Atkinson's Mr. Bean.^[2]

Described as one of "the best vocal performers around,"^[3] (BBC Comedy) he was one of the driving forces behind the hit BBC One comedy show The Big Impression with Alistair McGowan, and has also written and starred in several of his own series on BBC Radio 4, as well as writing extensively for many other TV and radio shows.^[4] His series Truly, Madly, Bletchley was described by The Independent on Sunday as "The most confident new sitcom since The Navy Lark",^[5] and Time Out praised his series The Harpoon, written with Peter Baynham, as having achieved "classic status."

His children's sitcom Scoop for CBBC, which Dutton wrote and performed in, ran for 3 series of 39 episodes between 2009 & 2011,^[6] and the hit impressions show "The Secret World," written with Bill Dare, in which Dutton performs alongside star impressionists Jon Culshaw, Lewis Macleod, Duncan Wisbey and Jess Robinson, ran for four series. The show was described by the Daily Express as "...definitely one of the funniest things I've heard on R4 for a while,"^[7] and on 12 May 2014 won the Radio Academy Gold Award for Best Comedy.^[8]

He is the author of seven books: the historical travelogue Shakespeare's Journey Home: a Traveller's Guide through Elizabethan England,^[9] Are We All Here?, a collection of humorous articles about the world's most eccentric clubs, some of which were previously published in the Independent on Sunday Talk of the Town magazine,^[10] Keeping Quiet: Visual Comedy in the Age of Sound, published by Chaplin Books, April 2015,^[11] and a humorous book for children, The Secret Diary of Samuel Pepys, aged Ten & Three Quarters.^[12] His fifth book, Water Gypsies: a history of life on Britain's Rivers & Canals was published in April 2021 by The History Press,^[13] inspired by his childhood on a houseboat on the River Thames at Chelsea.^[14] His sixth book, The Parade's Gone By: Everyday life in Britain in the twentieth century, a social history of the modern era based on a series of diaries discovered by the author's father, was published in 2023 by Furnival Books.^[15]. His seventh book, published in 2024, was a comedy joke book My Town, My Rules: the Diaries of Britain's Greatest Councillor, </ref>https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1399991612?ref_=pe_93986420_774957520 </ref>

In 2014 he was part of the team representing Leeds University in the Christmas edition of University Challenge.^[16]

In 2018 he wrote and performed a one-man stage tribute to the actor John Le Mesurier, "Do You Think That's Wise?" which he took to the Edinburgh Fringe festival in August and which toured the UK 2019-21, with a West End run in London in April & May 2020.^[17]

In 2020 he embarked on a UK stage tour of his own adaptation of Roy Clarke's sitcom Last of the Summer Wine, a one-man impressions show,^[18] but the UK tour was cancelled owing to COVID-19.^[18]