ITV ‘Take The Mike’ Award Winner 2002

Rose d’Or Award Winner 2007 (writer)

British Comedy Award Nominee 2007 (writer)

Ginger Cornishman Paul Kerensa has established himself as one of British comedy's leading young talents, both as a writer and a comedian. In just a few short years he has become a regular at the UK's biggest venues, and a popular and reliable headline act, and one of the few acts to play to both stag parties at Jongleurs and vicars’ conferences. Within a few months of his first gig, Paul emerged to win ITV's 'Take The Mike' stand-up competition in 2002. In the same year, he appeared in four new act finals at the Edinburgh Festival, including the televised BBC New Comedy Awards.

He writes for various sitcoms, including BBC1 hits Not Going Out and After You've Gone, as well as sketch shows such as Dead Ringers, ITV's Headcases and BBC3's The Wrong Door. He was awarded the Titheridge Prize as BBC Radio Entertainment's in-house comedy writer, and has also written for The News Quiz, The Now Show, and countless others.

A stalwart at the Edinburgh Festival, Paul has to date taken up four solo stand-up shows, two plays a sketch show. Previous popular (and profitable!) shows include 'Paul Kerensa's 26' (themed around TV show 24), 'Back To The Futon' (a tribute show to Back To The Future, including actual Delorean and Hoverboard), ‘Genesis’ (about the book, not the band) and ‘iPaul: The Great Playlist Challnge’ (in which he listened to 12 different musical genres each month for a year). ‘iPaul’ will go on a short tour of theatres and arts centres in 2009, and both ‘Genesis’ and his Christmas show ‘Nine Comedians & Carols’ are still in great demand in churches and schools.

He's also very modest, so given that he wrote all of the above, just pretend he wasn't modest and imagine what else he must have done but hasn't told you about. Here's what other less biased people said about him:

**** Metro

**** Chortle

"attitude, style and diamond-sharp wit" Maxim Magazine

“a joy to watch … a fast-moving, well-constructed set simply bursting with sharp punchlines” Chortle

"f**king funny" Ricky Gervais

"ingenious" Evening Standard

"his experience showed ... he made it look effortless" Manchester Online

"in manner and style, he has the confident, unconfrontational nature of Dave Gorman, though for material he is certainly an original. An impressively strong routine" Chortle

"well worth a night out" The Scotsman