Stephen James Merchant, born 24 November 1974, is a British writer, director, radio presenter, stand-up comedian, and actor. Stephen Merchant is best known for his collaborations with Ricky Gervais, as the co-writer and co-director of the popular British sitcom The Office, as the co-writer, co-director and a co-star of Extras, and as the co-host of The Ricky Gervais Show in its radio, podcast, audiobook and television-show forms. The Ricky Gervais Show in radio form has won a bronze Sony Award. Stephen Merchant is also due to be appearing in the new TV series Life's Too Short.
Stephen Merchant began his career performing stand-up comedy at Bristol's Comedy Box, where, Stephen Merchant recalls, "The first week I did really well...The second week I died on my arse. I realised that stand-up was not that easy after all." Stephen Merchant also appeared as a contestant on a 1997 episode of the TV game show Blockbusters and worked for a short time as a DJ for Radio Car oline.
Stephen Merchant met Ricky Gervais for the first time in 1997. Stephen Merchant and Gervais hosted a Saturday afternoon radio show together from January through August 1998, when both of them left XFM as it was bought by the Capital Radio Group. In the same year, Stephen Merchant was a finalist at the Daily Telegraph Open Mic Awards. Stephen Merchant did a total of 7 years on XFM 104.9. After leaving XFM, Stephen Merchant began a production course at the BBC. As part of his coursework, Stephen Merchant enlisted Gervais to perform in a 30-minute short film, "Seedy Boss," which became the earliest inspiration for their sitcom The Office. They collaborated on a sitcom pilot called Golden Years featuring a manager suffering a midlife crisis; the pilot aired on Channel 4's Comedy Lab series in September 1998, but failed to find further success.
In summer 2001, BBC Two aired the first series of The Office, co-written and co-directed by Stephen Merchant and Gervais and starring the latter as paper sales office manager David Brent. Beginning in September, Stephen Merchant and Gervais returned to Xfm as co-hosts of The Ricky Gervais Show, another Saturday afternoon program, which led to their fruitful relationship with producer Karl Pilkington.
They took a break from the radio show in mid-2002 in order to film the second series of The Office, which aired that autumn; in addition to writing and directing the show, Stephen Merchant made a cameo performance in the episode "Charity" as a friend of Gareth Keenan's character known by the name Oggy or Ogmonster. Stephen Merchant also directed a sitcom pilot called The Last Chancers, which aired on Comedy Lab in November 2002 and became a five-part series broadcast in December on E4.
Stephen Merchant and Gervais continued to host The Ricky Gervais Show through 2003, taking another break to film the Office Christmas special, which aired that December. The radio show went off the air indefinitely in January 2004. During 2004, Stephen Merchant appeared in a recurring role as a chef on Garth Marenghi's Darkplace and in a cameo on Green Wing, and served as a script associate on the Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker sitcom Nathan Barley. The same year, The Office aired in the U.S to critical acclaim. It went on to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series Musical or Comedy which both Stephen Merchant and Gervais accepted. This was followed in 2005 by a 4th series of the radio show, consisting of six episodes. In March 2005, the American version of The Office premiered, with Merchant and Gervais credited as executive producers. They would later co-write the third-season episode "The Convict", and Merchant would direct the fifth-season episode " Customer Survey".
In December 2005, with sponsorship by The Guardian, Stephen Merchant, Gervais and Pilkington began recording a weekly podcast, also called The Ricky Gervais Show. Throughout its first series, the podcast was consistently ranked the most popular in the world, and was certified as the most-downloaded of all time by Guinness World Records. Two more series and three special installments (the "Podfather Trilogy") were recorded in 2006, with the final episode released on Christmas Eve. In late 2008, they recorded four more podcasts and began a series of audiobooks examining Pilkington's perspective on various subjects.
In July 2005, following a brief return of the XFM radio show, Gervais and Stephen Merchant's new sitcom Extras premiered on BBC2. The series features Stephen Merchant in a supporting role as Darren Lamb, the incompetent agent to struggling actor Andy Millman, played by Gervais. Series 2 of Extras aired in late 2006, followed b y a Christmas special in December 2007; all three installments aired on HBO in the United States. Stephen Merchant won a 2006 British Comedy Award for Best TV Actor for his performance as Lamb.
In January 2007, Stephen Merchant began hosting his own radio show on BBC 6 Music, airing weekly on Sunday afternoons. Instead of comedy, The Steve Show focused on music and particularly "new music," defined by Stephen Merchant as "music you've not heard before." Many of the songs on the show were suggested by listeners or co-presenters. In addition to Stephen Merchant, the show featured several of his friends, including his housemate Dan, his childhood friend Harry, and actor Rufus Gerrard-Wright. A spring search for a "she-J" resulted in the addition of former Byker Grove actor Sammy T. Dobson joining the ensemble. "The Steve Show" aired for four seasons and concluded in May 2009; the presenters continue to contribute to a music blog called the Steve Show Posse.
Stephen Merchant has played small roles in the films Hot Fuzz (2007), Run Fatboy Run (2007), and The Invention of Lying (2009). Stephen Merchant has a supporting role in the 2009 film Tooth Fairy. Additionally, Stephen Merchant provides the voice-over in 2009 advertisements for Barclays and Waterstone's. In 2009, Stephen Merchant and Gervais collaborated on the film Cemetery Junction, set in working-class England in the 1970s. The film was released in April 2010 to generally mixed to positive reviews. In September 2010, Merchant produced a television show alongside Ricky Gervais starring Karl Pilkington called 'An Idiot Abroad'.
In January 2011, Stephen Merchant appeared at the 'Free Fringe Benefit' at the Bloomsbury Theatre, London. A show of stand-up to benefit the Free Fringe at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival, alongside comedians Jeremy Hardy, Michael Legge, Robin Ince, Mitch Benn, Isy Suttie, Bennett Arron, Andy Zaltzman and founder Peter Buckley Hill. Steph en Merchant also stated on the recent free podcast The Ricky Gervais Guide to...Comic Relief that he will be touring his first solo stand up tour later in the year. n Film 2011's Questionnaire feature, broadcast on 2 March 2011, Stephen Merchant described his favourite film as The Apartment (1960), his guilty pleasure as Con Air (1997), the film he cried at as The Bridges of Madison County, and the film Stephen Merchant didn't get as The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Stephen Merchant provides the voice of "Wheatley" in Valve's 2011 video game Portal 2.
Stephen Merchant is going to perform in UK in the end of this month. Stephen Merchant Tour tickets are on sale now. Stephen Merchant will kick off the tour Nov 28, 2011.
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Stephen Merchant Tickets for UK tour 2011
Starting Date: Nov 28, 2011
Day: Monday
Starting Time: 19:00
Venue: Hammersmith Apollo London
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