Richard Ayoade is a multi-award winning comedian, actor, writer and director. The success of Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place (which he co-wrote, directed and starred in) was followed by his BAFTA award winning role in The IT Crowd, and numerous other TV credits including The Mighty Boosh. Ayoade wrote and directed the BAFTA nominated film Submarine and wrote and directed The Double starring Jesse Eisenberg. He presented Travel Man and The Crystal Maze for Channel 4 and has released three books, Ayoade on Ayoade and The Grip of Film and Ayoade on Top, all published by Faber & Faber.
He was born in Hammersmith, and grew up in Suffolk, the son of a Norwegian mother and a Nigerian father. He studied Law at Cambridge university and, like so many legends of comedy including Eric Idle, Hugh Laurie and Graeme Garden, became the president of the Cambridge Footlights.
Richard's first big break in television was as a director, co-writer and actor in the cult classic Darkplace (2004) a parody of 1980's science fiction television shows.
He has directed films including Submarine (2010) and The Double (2013), as well as many music videos for bands including Arctic Monkeys, Vampire Weekend, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Kasabian.
Richard Ayoade has often worked alongside Noel Fielding, Julian Barratt, Matt Berry, and Rich Fulcher in shows like The Mighty Boosh. He has been a team captain on the panel show Was It Something I Said?
He presents various travel and technology programmes (Travel Man and Gadget Man) for Channel 4.