
Acting
Jan 20, 1987
Canterbury, Kent, UK
Harriet Kemsley
Acting
Biography
Kemsley began stand-up in 2011 and within months won the Funny's Funny contest. In 2012, she won Bath Comedy Festival New Act of the Year and Brighton Comedy Festival New Act of the Year and was named by Rhod Gilbert as one of the Ten Must See Comics of 2012. Her autobiographical solo show, Slutty Joan, was reviewed positively in The Guardian. She hosts a podcast, Why Is Harriet Crying?, with fellow comedian Sunil Patel. Kemsley has appeared on Sam Delaney's News Thing, Roast Battle, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and 8 Out of 10 Cats. She and then-fiancé Bobby Mair appeared on a Viceland reality show in 2017, entitled Bobby & Harriet Get Married, featuring their wedding, officiated by comedian Romesh Ranganathan. As an actress, she has appeared in the film Bonobo and on TV on Damned and Doctor Foster. She also provided the voice of Nashandra, the final boss of the video game Dark Souls II.
Feature Films (7)

Judith, an uptight widow, is appalled when her daughter Lily quits law school to move into a commune of hippie misfits who live according to the behavioural principles of the bonobo monkey, a species famous for its 'make love not war' philosophy.
Bonobo

In her debut stand-up special, Harriet takes bad aim at being married (for now), motherhood and the beauty industry.
Harriet Kemsley: Woman Child

Ridiculous things always happen to Harriet, but this year it’s out of control. She’s got to rebuild her whole life but she cannot work out which way the building-blocks go. The multi award-winning Harriet Kemsley is back with a new show about break-ups, sloths and trying to think positively while everything descends into absolute chaos.
Harriet Kemsley: Everything Always Works Out For Me

In 2018 Joz Norris had a breakdown that made him afraid to leave his own flat. In 2019 he was evicted from that flat and had to say goodbye to the identity he had constructed for himself in the eight years he lived there. You Build The Thing You Think You Are is an absurdist storytelling show about how we construct ourselves, about the accumulation of rubbish both in our heads and in our homes, about feeling more at home in your mind than in your body, and about the struggle to ever share any of this stuff with another human being. It's about a Romanian Troll/Goblin thing who just wants to sing the hits and learn how to dance; about a Van Morrison gig that accidentally came to be the cornerstone of a personality; and about a gong bath so profound that it caused someone's spine to grow by two inches.
You Build The Thing You Think You Are

The Edinburgh Comedy Award-winning, total sell-out, global cult sensation is coming to the Eventim Apollo for its biggest and most spectacular show yet. CLASH OF THE COMICS is an epic, jaw-dropping night in which the biggest names in comedy really – yes, really – step into the ring, to take on each other and some of the UK’s biggest and best professional wrestlers
Clash of the Comics

Hamleys throws open its doors for a celeb-packed celebration of the toys that defined generations. From timeless classics to modern icons, we explore the biggest toy crazes of the last 200 years.
Hamleys: Top 100 Toys of All Time

From comedy stardom to a criminal trial, inside voices and archive footage charts British comedian Russell Brand's meteoric rise and steep fall following allegations of sexual offences.
Russell Brand: Open Secret
Television & Series (39)

Jimmy Carr hosts proceedings as the 8 Out of 10 Cats crew take over the words and numbers quiz.
8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown

Hosted by Josh Widdicombe and James Acaster, top comedians are posed absurd hypothetical situations and scored on how well they would deal with them. Over three rounds, two teams of comedians must think fast as they are faced with a series of completely made-up scenarios and interrogated on their approach to each one. Host Josh Widdicombe poses the questions and interrogates the guests' methods, whilst James Acaster, as arbiter of the Hypotheticals, deals with the guests quibbles and queries and doles out the points.
Hypothetical

One of Britain’s favourite comedians doing what he does best – being funny. But Alan Davies isn’t on a stage, or behind his QI desk sparring with Stephen Fry, or even wearing his Jonathan Creek duffle coat… instead, Alan is at his most relaxed and most natural – sitting around chatting with some of his best comedian friends.
Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled

Romesh Ranganathan, joined by celebrity guests and the Ranganation, his very own focus group of 25 members of the public, takes a funny, topical look at modern Britain.
The Ranganation

Stuart Laws takes an in-depth look at life after a pandemic and how the familiar we knew has changed forever. This mini series gets some of the UK's best comedians to ask the questions we've been afraid to ask like "What?", "How?" and "Why?"






