Tim Vine is an English comedian, actor, writer, and presenter known for his one liner jokes, and his role on Not Going Out from 2006 to 2014. He has released a number of DVDs of his stand-up comedy and has written several joke books. In 2010 and 2014, Vine won the award for best joke at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. His winning jokes were: “I’ve just been on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday. I’ll tell you what, never again” and “I decided to sell my Hoover … well it was just collecting dust.” He was the runner up in 2011, 2012 and 2013.
Vine and a security guard from his office job in Croydon started doing open mic nights as a hobby. During 1991, Tim Vine regularly honed his routine at the Comedy Café in London, adding other clubs throughout 1992. He came second in the Hackney Empire New Act competition in 1993. Vine quit his job to go on tour as a support act for Boothby Graffoe, who later wrote additional material for The Sketch Show. Vine became a regular on the London comedy circuit by 1994, trying a variety of comedy styles. He realised one-liners were a good way forward after the audience’s positive reaction to his joke, ‘So I went to the doctors. He said, “You’ve got hypochondria”. I said, “Not that as well”.’ Vine built up this repertoire, before making his first TV appearance – on BBC One’s Pebble Mill.”
In 1996, Vine met LeeMack at the Comedy Lounge in Kingston-Upon-Hull. Mack was competing in The Gong Show, where up to ten comedians try to last for a full five minute slot, hoping to beat the Gong and not get voted off by the public. Mack inadvertently did a couple of Vine’s jokes, to which the audience shouted “Tim Vine”. When Mack came off stage, he asked a man who Tim Vine was, and got the reply “He plays here quite a bit.” The pair later worked together on The Sketch Show, Not Going Out and Let’s Play Darts.
Vine’s musical talents, aside from the comedy songs in his act, include playing the guitar, bass, piano and drums. He occasionally plays the drums at his church. He was in several bands, including alongside his brother Jeremy in The Flared Generation, which Smash Hits magazine described as “the most unfashionable punk band in the country. Vine has released three novelty music albums, Pretend Popstar – Fake Hits, Dance Floor Gridlock and Angus Crunch and the Nepali Flautist. Vine is a huge Elvis Presley fan, and has been since Elvis died in 1977; he has a picture of the rock and roll legend in every room at home.
In May 2020, when the Eurovision Song Contest was cancelled due to the covid pandemic, Vine competed in the Isolation Song Contest representing Romania with his home-filmed, self-composed entry Room Mania. John Archer also made several appearances in shots from his own house. The event raised around £40,000 for the homeless charity Crisis, Refuge (which supports female domestic abuse survivors) and The Trussell Trust food banks.
