Dan Clark
| Dan Clark | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Daniel Gregory Clark 3 July 1976 London, England |
| Occupation | Actor, comedian, writer, director, singer |
| Years active | 1996–present |
Daniel Gregory "Dan" Clark (born 3 July 1976) is an English actor, comedian, writer, director, and singer. He is best known for playing Don Danbury on the BBC Three sitcom How Not to Live Your Life, which he also wrote, co-produced, and sometimes directed. He has been a regular on the British comedy scene as both a sketch and stand-up comedian.
Clark started his career in comedy at the age of 19 by taking a play he co-wrote and starred in with old school friend Oliver Maltman to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In the years that followed, Clark formed a comedy trio called Electric Eel and they performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 1998 and 1999. Also in 1999, they made a pilot for C4's Comedy Lab series, called Roy Dance is Dead, and the following year a full series was commissioned. In February 2002, retitled The Estate Agents, the series was broadcast. Electric Eel followed the series with a UK tour and another Edinburgh Festival run.
In 2003, Clark took his first one-man show to Edinburgh. 57 Minutes was a mix of monologues and sketches. The following year, he began a career in stand-up. He took a full hour show to the Edinburgh Festival in 2005, 2006, and 2007. He also began his monthly comedy night, Clark's, which he would host and curate. In the summer of 2006, Clark wrote and performed in a series of shorts for the Paramount Comedy Channel (now Comedy Central UK) called Dan Clark's Guide to Dating. That was followed by another series called Dan Clark's Guide to Working. The shorts were broadcast between main TV shows on the channel but were subsequently put online and gathered huge numbers of views on YouTube.
After the success of the Dan Clark's Guide to... series, there was interest from the BBC to develop the format. Clark and his producer, Gary Reich, shot a pilot in the summer of 2007 called How Not To Live Your Life. It combined a traditional sitcom narrative with the quick fire "what not to do" lists from the Paramount shorts. A full series was commissioned and went out in August 2008. It started with modest viewing figures but grew over the course of three seasons, doubling its viewing figures each series. It became a cult hit with the third series getting viewing figures of 1.4 million across the week's repeats. Additionally, it was regularly the second most watched show on the BBC's iPlayer. In 2011, BBC3 controller Danny Cohen left the channel to go to BBC1. New controller Zai Bennet cancelled many of the comedies on the channel, including How Not To Live Your Life]. He did, however, commission a Christmas special, allowing Clark and co to wrap up the series and give the fans a conclusion to the love story which had developed over the three seasons. Clark wrote every episode of the show (21 in total), co-produced all three seasons, and directed various episodes of the first series.
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