Patrick Kielty - Comedy and Television Career

Comedy and Television Career

St Patrick's Grammar School, Downpatrick, holds an annual holiday concert. Kielty, while a student there, featured regularly, doing impersonations of local politicians, celebrities, and sportsmen. His career started while he was still a psychology student at Queen's University of Belfast. He became well known locally for his stand-up comedy routines at The Empire pub comedy nights, called "The Empire Laughs Back". One such routine involved donning a balaclava and making spoof paramilitary pronouncements. In the early 1990s, Kielty won the Guinness Entertainer of the Year in INF Warrenpoint, an event fronted by Sean Mallon.

In 1993, Kielty presented the show SUS on UTV. He later became the warm-up act for a BBC Northern Ireland programme, Anderson on the Box, presented by local personality Gerry Anderson. When this show was axed, he presented its replacement, PK Tonight. Although this ran for only a year and was only shown in Northern Ireland, it did attract the attention of London-based broadcasters and Kielty graduated to presenting programmes such as Last Chance Lottery and Patrick Kielty Almost Live, broadcast throughout the UK. He also presented a series of After The Break. He did an impersonation of Martin McGuinness (who bears a slight resemblance to Art Garfunkel) singing the Simon and Garfunkel song, "Bridge over Troubled Water".

He continues to appear on national television, although he has left much of his political comedy background behind, tending to favour light-entertainment shows such as the BBC's Fame Academy, Comic Relief does Fame Academy and Love Island for ITV in both 2005 and 2006. In 2006, he hosted a segment on ITV's coverage of The Prince's Trust 30th Birthday LIVE alongside Kate Thornton. He hosted the original pilot of the American version of Deal or No Deal for ABC in early 2004. However, ABC decided against airing the series, which ended up on NBC, with Canadian comedian Howie Mandel as host. In 2006, Kielty returned to the stand-up scene with a brand new UK tour. A DVD, filmed at Belfast's Grand Opera House, was later released. In 2007, he began work on the UK production of A Night in November, written by Northern Irish dramatist Marie Jones (Stones in His Pockets).

In 2007 he also guested on the BBC's third series of Live at the Apollo. He sat in for Alan Carr on his BBC Radio 2 show when Alan was on holidays. He has also sat in for Steve Wright and Simon Mayo on the station. He hosted the Saturday morning show on BBC Radio 2 which started on the 24 July 2010 and it ran for 10 weeks. Kielty presented Sport Relief in 2010 and 2012 alongside Fearne Cotton. In 2010, he took part in Channel 4's Comedy Gala, a benefit show held in aid of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, filmed live at the O2 Arena in London on 30 March.

Kielty was the host of the first series of Channel 4's Stand Up for the Week, which began in June 2010 and ran for six weeks. He played for the rest of world side in series 4 of Soccer Aid, substituting at half time for Edwin van der Sar. In 2012, he presented four episodes of This Morning, alongside Kate Thornton for one and Emma Willis for three.