Famous Face in Whitstable – Harry Hill

CommunityAd’s Famous Face feature could run for several years here in Whitstable. The town has been showered in celebs in the last decade or so; from everyone’s favourite ‘gobby journo’ Janet Street-Porter, who labelled Whitstable the ‘perfect escape’, to Kent’s favourite ‘risky artist’ Tracey Emin, who owned one of the town’s most vibrant beach huts.

The latest to the ‘celebritarti’ here, in what’s often referred to as the bubble, is John Newman, the internationally recognised chart-topper is said to be very happy and settled here, although he is not the subject of this issue’s famous face. For this issue, we turn to the pool of comic talent thriving in our community.

Comedians are as plentiful as oysters in Whitstable. Alan Davies and Matthew Holness both live here and abide by the mantra ‘laughter is the best medicine’. However, one national treasure that calls Whitstable home and has taken the saying ‘laughter is the best medicine’ to the next level, is Harry Hill. Born Matthew Keith Hall in 1964, growing up in Staplehurst, Kent, the man who now dons the biggest and best collars in Show businesses was at one time an aspiring doctor. Attending St George’s Hospital Medical School before training as a neurosurgeon at the University of London.

For Hill, though, laughter was the best form of medicine that he could bring the world and he left his life as a medical professional behind him. Hill’s career took off, or began to ripen if you like, with a BBC Radio 4 show titled Harry Hill’s Fruit Corner. Hosting the show himself he welcomed the likes of Al Murray, Rolf Harris and Ronnie Corbett. The show ran for four seasons before Harry Hill’s fully-charged comic persona earned some well-deserved screen time.

Sticking with the theme of ‘fruit’, Hill’s first TV show was titled Fruit Fancies and first aired in 1994, it followed a similar style to Fruit Corner, featuring celebrity guests interspersed with sketches from the fruity comedian himself. Harry Hill switched from the BBC to Channel 4, which was the home of his show Harry Hill, essentially a televised version of Fruit Corner, which ran into the new millennium.

Then came an offer from ITV, and from the depths of the comic’s mind, or gut perhaps, came his finest creation that earned him so much success, a BAFTA and household name status; Harry Hill’s TV Burp, which aired from 2001 – 2012.  Since then, Harry has remained firmly in the national consciousness with a series of children’s TV programmes and novels. He won the hearts of Whitstable locals but made enemies of all Herne Bay inhabitants when revealing, in 2013, he loves long walks, one of his favourite walking routes is setting out from Whitstable following the coast along to Herne Bay, a lovely route but according to Harry, “The only problem with walking to Herne Bay is that at the end of it, you’re in Herne
Bay.”

In the words of TV BURP – FIGHT!

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