29 Facts About Alistair McGowan

Alistair McGowan has worked extensively in theatre and appeared in the West End in Art, Cabaret, The Mikado, Pymalion, and Little Shop of Horrors.

Alistair McGowan released an album of classical piano music called The Piano Album in 2017, and his poetry collection Not What We Were Expecting was published in 2024.

Alistair McGowan has written and starred in three plays for BBC Radio 4 about Erik Satie, John Field and George Bernard Shaw.

Alistair McGowan devised stage shows showcasing the music and verse of Noel Coward, and the music and writings of Erik Satie.

Alistair McGowan found work as a comedian, and performed some of the voices for the ITV television series Spitting Image.

Alistair McGowan's sporting impressions were showcased on the BBC 2 football magazine programme Sick as a Parrot.

Alistair McGowan appeared as the recycling man in the BBC show Think about Science.

Alistair McGowan was a series regular in the first season of Dead Ringers.

Alistair McGowan hosted and starred in a sporting impressions show on BBC Radio 5 Live called The Game's Up in the late 1990s.

Alistair McGowan is patron of the Ludlow Fringe Festival, where he first performed live in 2013.

Alistair McGowan made a return to dramatic acting in 2005, appearing in the BBC's adaptation of Charles Dickens's novel Bleak House.

Alistair McGowan presented an episode of Have I Got News for You on 20 October 2006.

Alistair McGowan joined the Royal Shakespeare Company for the Christmas 2006 season playing Mr Page in Merry Wives: the Musical opposite Judi Dench, Simon Callow and Haydn Gwynne.

Alistair McGowan has re-voiced video footage of BBC Sports Personality of the Year and Match of the Day.

In 2007, Alistair McGowan starred as Orin Scrivello in the West End transfer of the Menier Chocolate Factory's revival of Little Shop of Horrors, and filmed My Life in Ruins, an American comedy film set in the ruins of ancient Greece.

In January and February 2008, Alistair McGowan starred as the eponymous protagonist of The Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan, in a revival by the Carl Rosa Opera Company.

In March 2009, Alistair McGowan starred as the Duke in the stage version of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure.

Alistair McGowan appeared as a host on one episode of the fifth series of Live at the Apollo, which aired on 1 January 2010.

Alistair McGowan appeared in Skins in February 2011, playing Nick's coach in the fifth episode of the new series.

In 2013, Alistair McGowan embarked on a fifty-date stand-up tour in his show Not Just A Pretty Voice.

Alistair McGowan took part, with Eddie Izzard, in the first ever stand-up show performed by two English comics totally in French in Sheffield.

From 10 June to 11 July 2015, Alistair McGowan starred as Jimmy Savile in An Audience with Jimmy Savile, a play written by Jonathan Maitland, at the Park Theatre in London.

Alistair McGowan made another cameo as Savile in the movie Creation Stories about Creation Records owner Alan McGee.

In 2018, Alistair McGowan was a voice-artist, writer, and producer on the topical re-voicing show The Week That Wasn't on Sky One.

Alistair McGowan serves as an ambassador to WWF-UK, part of the global World Wide Fund for Nature, and campaigns on a number of environmental issues.

Alistair McGowan is a patron of the urban tree-planting charity Trees for Cities.

In June 2011 it was announced that Alistair McGowan had become a Patron of the Friends of Brandwood End Cemetery, where over 30 members of his extended family are interred.

Alistair McGowan was in a relationship for seven years with fellow television comedian Ronni Ancona.

Alistair McGowan is a supporter of Leeds United, even claiming that he decided to study at Leeds partly because of its proximity to Elland Road, and Coventry City, the team closest to the area where he spent his late teens, and his interest in football forms the basis of his 2009 book A Matter of Life and Death.