An Audience With Arthur Smith

Often described as the compère beyond compare, but before becoming a fully-fledged playwright, panellist, performer, and stalwart of the Edinburgh Festival, Arthur Smith worked as a road sweeper, dustman, market researcher, teacher, and even advertised chicken burgers in supermarkets dressed as a fox.

A career in comedy was the only one that could follow a build up like that. He was one of many stand-up performers on the alternative comedy scene in the eighties. Twenty years on, he still performs in much the same manner, perhaps ironically, he now describes himself as a “semi-professional” comedian.

To BBC radio and TV audiences, his career has been split between appearing on top quiz shows and fronting the funny section in Loose Ends. On TV, he’s been a regular Grumpy Old Man and Countdown wordsmith. His plays include the award-winning An Evening with Gary Lineker, My Summer with Des, and The Bed Show.

He has also presented Radio 4’s Excess Baggage and Radio 2’s The Smith Lectures, and is a regular guest on Loose Ends. He describes himself as Radio 4’s “bit of rough”.