Jack Docherty

Jack Docherty started his career at the Edinburgh Festival in the eighties as part of the sketch group The Bodgers who were twice shortlisted for the Perrier Award. He became a full time comedy writer in 1985 writing Spitting Image, Alas Smith and Jones, The Lenny Henry Show, Max Headroom, Radio Active, In One Ear, Hello Mum, The World According to Smith and Jones, Vic Reeves’ Big Night Out and many other shows.

He returned to performing with his writing partner Moray Hunter in The Couch which led to them becoming regulars on Friday Night Live. This was followed by four series of Absolutely, the critically acclaimed, award winning, cult C4 sketch show. This spawned a spin off C4 sitcom, mr don and mr george, written by and starring Docherty and Hunter. He also wrote, produced and starred in Mac, a BBC Scotland sitcom featuring another spin-off character from Absolutely. He then joined The Comic Strip for their last BBC2 series and made guest appearances in Red Dwarf, Sardines, Atletico Partick, Have I Got News For You, Buzzcocks, It’s Only TV But I Like it and provided the voice for aardman’s Oscar nominated short film Humdrum.

He founded Absolutely Productions, which in addition to producing the Absolutely alumni’s individual projects was the company behind The Armstrong and Miller Show, Trigger Happy TV and Peter Richardson’s movies Stella Street and Churchill – The Hollywood Years.

In the nineties in addition to writing and performing, he also worked extensively as a presenter/host. He fronted The Ken Fine Show, STV’s documentary series on the Scots language, and hosted two series of Edinburgh Nights, the BBC2 Edinburgh festival review show. He hosted the British Academy Film Awards and became Britain’s first five nights-a-week talk show host on C5’s The Jack Docherty Show (97-99) working with a new generation of comedy writers including Kevin Cecil and Andy Riley, Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain and David Mitchell and Robert Webb.

In the past decade he has continued to work across these various disciplines. He wrote and starred in two series of the BBC2 sitcom The Creatives, wrote and produced Model, Actress, Whatever, the Rankin directed C4 Comedy Lab, acted in Monarch of the Glen and took the lead role in the Rob Grant penned The Strangerers, Sky One’s sci-fi comedy drama. He also wrote and produced the BBC comedy pilots Welcome to Strathmuir and Me And All The Other Mothers, and wrote the BBC drama pilots Faith and Security. He had his own Radio 2 show, Saturday Night Jack and has narrated various documentaries.

His most recent work includes the award winning referendum comedy Scotland In A Day for Channel 4, producing the BBC Scotland film No Holds Bard, writing the Hartswood produced BBC2 sitcom The Cup, producing two series of Armstrong and Bain’s BBC1 sitcom Old Guys and acting in two series of Badults for BBC3. As an actor/writer he is currently in the fourth series of BBC1 Scotland’s Scot Squad. He wrote and performed three series of Start/Stop for R4 and its spin-off Stop/Start for the BBC1 Comedy Playhouse season and has just written the second series of Borderline for C5.

He has two films in development – Irresistible and Cardboard Mummy.