Dominic Frisby is a comedian and voiceover artist from London. His father is the playwright Terrence Frisby, whose most famous play, There's A Girl In My Soup, was once the longest-running comedy in the history of the West End..

Dominic burst onto the UK comedy circuit in 1997 with an act called The Upper-Class Rapper. The Evening Standard called it, 'Masterful'; The Times, 'Very impressive and very witty' and BBC London said it was, 'Spookily perfect'. It was an extremely funny, left-field act. However, as with all extremely funny, left-field acts, it would either storm or die. There was no in-between. But those who attended Up The Creek in Greenwich and saw him in those early years will attest to how funny the act could be.

Dominic was also unlucky. He won the Ha Bloody Ha Best New Comedian Award with Rob Rouse, ahead of Mickey Flanagan, Hal Cruttenden, Dan Antopolski, Alun Cochrane and many others who went on to be top stand-ups, and was favourite to win the Hackney Empire new comedy award the following week, but a motor cycle crash meant he had bad concussion for the final and missed out. In the Daily Telegraph Best New Comedian award, Dominic won his semi-final, but Avalon, the organizers, put through another act, who (co-incidently?) they were planning to represent.

Dominic went on to create other silly stereotypes, including the Alpine slap dancer Ludwig The Bavarian. But many bookers on the stand-up scene were reluctant to book this character act, when the fashion was for safer, straight stand-up.

Frisby attended the Edinburgh Festival in 2000 with a sketch show called Asprey and Frisby. It was supposed to be a double act with the actor George Asprey, but Asprey pulled out at the last minute. Dominic did it alone. The Stage described the show, ‘Clever, well-balanced, painfully-funny sketches, written and performed with tremendous skill. Frisby is a triumph.’ The Guardian said, ‘Viciously funny and inventive, a near-rapturous response - Frisby is a comic catch.’

In 2001 he returned, but the show was too similar to the previous year's to make much of an impact. In 2003, he went back with the show, Truth And Bullshit. But during the run, an unlikely incident with a Ouija Board caused his marriage to fall apart and the show's fortunes slid along with Dominic's.

In the meantime, Dominic's voiceover career has shown the consistency that his comedy hasn't. He is in demand and is continually used in commercials, documentaries and sports programmess, examples of which can be heard here. pages/DominicFrisby.htm

Peter Graham who runs Downstairs At The Kings Head, one of London's oldest clubs ([1502]), saw Dominic's potential and asked him to become the resident compere, as the previous compere Hugh Thomas, had become ill.

Once the most in-demand character act after Al Murray, Dominic has now re-invented himself as a compere. There are some great examples of his compering on his official site.

Dominic Frisby has made numerous TV appearances as an actor, but, bizarrely, he appears to have made NONE as a comedian. Most recently he could be seen in the disappointing BBC3 series Titty Bang Bang.

He has written two novels, both of which remain unpublished, and made numrous short films and self-initiated television programmes, which have gone on to become uncommissioned.

One of these short films, Love On The Upper Lip, was directed by the music videos, commercials and short films director Brendon Connelly, from an original idea by Dave Thompson, once the man inside the suit of Teletubby Tinky Winky. Frisby provides voice-over for the film, as well as playing the lead role, and sports a magnificent moustache throughout, which ends up being instrumental to the plot.

Amongst the comedy cognicenti, there is a commonly held view that Frisby could have been a much greater success if only he could unite with a strong manager.

He has four children, Samuel, Eliza, Lola and Ferdinand.

External links

Dominic Frisby's homepage

Love On The Upper Lip

Review of Dominic Frisby as a compere on the BBC website

[1503] IMDB