Bennett Arron
Bennett Arron is an award-winning Jewish and Welsh writer and stand-up comedian. In 1997 he was a finalist of the BBC New Comedy Awards, alongside Peter Kay. He is a past winner of the BBC Wales New Writer's Award and the TAPS Comedy Writer of The Year Award.
Born in Port Talbot[1] in South Wales Bennett moved to London to attend the drama school, the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts. It was there that he started writing and performing sketches. After leaving drama school he formed the sketch group 4-Ply. The group toured venues around the country and had a sell-out show at the Edinburgh Festival.
Since then Bennett has had a very successful career as a stand-up comedian and has written for several television programmes. In 2007, he wrote, directed and presented the documentary How Not To Lose Your Identity for Channel 4[2] which was based on his own experience of identity fraud[3] and proved how easy a crime it easy to carry out by dumpster diving and social engineering. He even went as far as setting up a stall at a shopping centre, supposedly selling identity theft insurance, but in fact was scamming people into revealing all their identity information In the programme he stole the identity of the then Home Secretary, Charles Clarke and was subsequently arrested.[4] The programme was critically acclaimed by the press ("Pick of the Week", The Guardian; "fascinating and disturbing ****", The TV Times) and led to Bennett touring a show based on his experiences,[5] as well as being commissioned to write a book.
Writing credits
Bennett has written comedy material for Hale and Pace, Freddie Starr, The Real McCoy, Large, Stop the World, No Limit, The Varrell and Decker Show, Samstag Nacht, The April Hailer Show, The 11 O'Clock Show, Commercial Breakdown, RI:SE, V Graham Norton and Jack Whitehall's Hit The Road Jack.
He has also written for situation comedies, including Ed Stone is Dead (starring Richard Blackwood) and Sam's Game (starring Davina McCall and Ed Byrne). He is currently one of the main writers on two children's series; The Slammer (BBC 1) and Genie In The House (the highest rated programme on Nickelodeon.) He also wrote several episodes for the children's sitcom Which is Witch?
Performing credits
As a stand-up comedian, Bennett has performed at every major venue in the UK as well as performing in the United Arab Emirates, Germany, Poland and Australia. He also regularly performs at large corporate events as a comedian, awards host or keynote speaker on the subject of Identity Theft. Bennett recently supported Ricky Gervais on some of his tour dates.
References
- ↑ http://www.walesonline.co.uk/showbiz-and-lifestyle/arts-in-wales/2011/11/04/welsh-comedian-bennett-arron-brings-his-tales-of-being-the-only-jewish-boy-in-his-town-to-the-stage-91466-29715669/
- ↑ http://www.channel4.com/news/microsites/I/identity/
- ↑ http://www.scotsman.com/news/comedy_review_bennett_arron_glasgow_1_1546228
- ↑ http://www.anorak.co.uk/173111/news/identity-card-bennett-arron-is-charles-clarke.html/
- ↑ http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/entertainment/articles/2010-03/03/gq-jokes-bennett-arron
