About the Author

Tony Hawks, is a British comedian and author, famous for his Quizotic travel accounts undertaking bizarre wagers with friends. Hawks performs stand-up comedy, and is a regular on TV and radio panel games in the UK, including I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, Just a Minute, The Unbelievable Truth and Have I Got News for You, although he first came to prominence as one of two resident performers ?? the other was Jo Brand ?? on semi-successful BBC monologue show The Brain Drain. He first attempted to break into show business as a serious singer-songwriter, but it was with a novelty record that he had his first brush with fame. As leader of the trio Morris Minor and the Majors, he reached number 4 in the UK charts with the Beastie Boys parody, Stutter Rap (No Sleep Til Bedtime) in 1988. It went on to sell 220,000 copies, and was number one in Australia. The follow-up, a pastiche of Stock Aitken Waterman called This Is the Chorus, fared less well. The full-length feature film version of his book Round Ireland with a Fridge, starring Tony, Josie Lawrence, Ed Byrne and Sean Hughes, was released in Autumn 2010. Filming on the follow-up, Playing the Moldovans at Tennis, with Steven Frost, Angus Deayton, Morwenna Banks and Laura Solon, has just been completed. In March 2011 Tony travelled to Japan to appear at the Okinawa International Film Festival where Round Ireland with a Fridge was nominated for Best Comedy. Tony Hawks donated half of the royalties from his book Playing the Moldovans at Tennis to a trust fund for Moldova, which was used to open the Hippocrates Centre, a medical centre that provides rehabilitative therapy for disabled children from socially vulnerable families. Hawks continues to support Hippocrates through fundraising and personal involvement. Hawks is the co-founder and public face of the "Tennis for Free" campaign which aims to make Britain's existing municipal tennis facilities available to all. He is frequently confused with Tony Hawk, largely because the latter's video game franchise uses the possessive apostrophe ("Tony Hawk's") . Hawks maintains a list of emails intended for the skateboarder and his mischievous responses to them on his website. On 2 January 2008 he appeared on an edition of Celebrity Mastermind, with Tony Hawk as his chosen specialised subject. Hawks noted that his correspondents "might be able to do backside varials but they can't spell to save their lives. "In September he will begin his first National Theatre tour since 2003 with a new one man show called Random Fun.

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