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Henry Normal Profile:

Comedy Career Path:
Insurance Broker
Unemployed
Stand-up comedian
Comedy Writer and Producer
Head of Baby Cow Productions

Writing and production credits include:
Paul Calf Video Diary
Coogan's Run
The Mrs Merton Show
The Royle Family
Marion and Geoff
Human Remains
24 Hour Party People
The Parole Officer
I Am Not An Animal
Whine Gums
The Mighty Boosh
Ideal

Career Highs:
I used to write poetry and I remember a woman coming to me and saying that her friend had died and one of my poems was read at her funeral. Now, I know that's not very funny, but as a writer to be part of marking somebody's passing, I thought that was quite a compliment.

Another very good moment, in a completely different context, was when for our first programme, Human Remains, Julia Davis won an RTS award. To see Julia go up and receive an RTS award for that programme was like being a father and is a totally different sort of achievement

Influences:
My favourite comedian was Jack Benny who I'd seen when I was a kid on television on the Dean Martin show. And I got very into the Marx Brothers and a lot of the New York Jewish comedians. In my head I was part of that Vaudeville tradition, though no one would have thought that considering my act, and no one would have thought that from looking at me. But there was a certain New York Jewish influence that I've always held.

TV favourite:
The thing that I'm watching at the moment is the 5th series of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Live Favourite:
Count Arthur Strong is my favourite live act at the moment, it's a very well-observed character comedy.

Words of advice for 4Laughs script-writers:
If we don't find anything funny in the first 10 pages, that's 10 minutes into a programme and people will have turned off by then. So the essence really is for us to laugh within the first ten pages. If we dont - send it to somebody else - they might.

My Web Address:

Baby Cow