John Oliver

John William Oliver (born 23 April 1977) is a British and American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host.

Oliver started his career as a stand-up comedian in the United Kingdom.

John William Oliver was born on 23 April 1977 in Erdington, Birmingham, England, to Carole and Jim Oliver.

His father, from the Wirral Peninsula, was both a school headmaster and social worker, and his mother, from Liverpool, was a music teacher.

His uncle was the composer Stephen Oliver.

Oliver attended the Mark Rutherford School in Bedford and learned to play the viola as a child.

Following secondary school, he studied at Christ's College, Cambridge.

Oliver's first appearance on-screen was playing Felix Pardiggle, a minor role in the BBC drama Bleak House, in 1985.

In an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers, he commented, "When I was six years old ... [the BBC] wanted a kid with dark hair and brown eyes, and I was two-for-two on that".

While a student there in the mid-to-late 1990s, Oliver was a member of the Cambridge Footlights, the university theatrical club run by students of Cambridge University.

Oliver's contemporaries included David Mitchell and Richard Ayoade, and he became the club's vice president in 1997.

In 1998, Oliver graduated with a degree in English.

In 2001, Oliver appeared as a bank manager in series two of People Like Us.

Oliver said in a later Seth Meyers appearance that one of his first paying jobs was writing for the British morning show The Big Breakfast.

Oliver's first major stand-up appearance was at the 2001 Edinburgh Festival Fringe as part of the late-night showcase The Comedy Zone, where he played an "oleaginous journalist".

Oliver frequently worked with other members of the comedian group the Chocolate Milk Gang, including Daniel Kitson, Russell Howard, David O'Doherty, and Alun Cochrane.

His debut solo show was at the 2002 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and he returned the following year.

From 2002 to 2003, Oliver worked on the BBC Three comedy series The State We're In, along with Anita Rani, Jon Holmes, and Robin Ince.

In 2003, Oliver manned the "results desk" on an election night episode of Armando Iannucci's satirical show Gash on Channel 4.

In 2004 and 2005, he performed in a double act and co-hosted the political radio show Political Animal with Andy Zaltzman.

In 2004, Oliver wrote and performed in the satirical radio programme The Department on BBC Radio 4 with Andy Zaltzman and Chris Addison.

Starting in June 2005, Oliver made appearances on British television as a panellist on the satirical news show Mock the Week, and became a frequent guest on the first two series.

He came to wider attention for his work in the United States as Senior British Correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart from 2006 to 2013.

In July 2006, Oliver joined The Daily Show with Jon Stewart as its Senior British Correspondent.

He says he was interviewed for the show on the recommendation of comedian Ricky Gervais, who had never met Oliver, but was familiar with his work.

Two weeks after the interview, he got the job, flying from London to New York City on a Sunday and unexpectedly appearing on camera the next day.

In 2007, Oliver wrote and presented a BBC America campaign to have viewers use closed captions.

Shown in brief segments before shows, one of the campaign messages said, "The following program contains accents you would have heard a lot more if you hadn't thrown our tea into Boston Harbor ... Not even British people can follow the British accent 100 per cent of the time. Therefore you, like me, might want to use closed-captioning."

Oliver used some of these jokes in his stand-up routine.

After moving to New York City, Oliver began performing stand-up comedy in clubs, later headlining shows in larger venues.

Oliver received Emmy Awards for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series for The Daily Show in 2009, 2011, and 2012.

From 2010 to 2013, Oliver hosted his stand-up series John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show on Comedy Central.

He has also acted on television, most prominently in a recurring role as Dr Ian Duncan on the NBC sitcom Community, and in films, including voice-over work in The Smurfs (2011), The Smurfs 2 (2013), and the 2019 remake of The Lion King.

Oliver won three Primetime Emmy Awards for writing for The Daily Show and he became the guest host for an eight-week period in 2013.

He also co-hosted the comedy podcast The Bugle with Andy Zaltzman, with whom Oliver had previously worked with on the radio series Political Animal.

Since 2014, Oliver has been the host of the HBO series Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

He has received widespread critical and popular recognition for his work on the series, and its influence over US culture, legislation and policymaking has been dubbed the "John Oliver effect".

For his work on Last Week Tonight, Oliver has won sixteen Emmy Awards and two Peabody Awards and was included in the 2015 Time 100. Time described him as a "comedic agent of change...powerful because he isn't afraid to tackle important issues thoughtfully, without fear or apology".

Oliver's work has been described as journalism or investigative journalism, labels that Oliver rejects.

He became a US citizen in 2019.