About
Jenny Eclair, has been a stand up comic for donkeys’ years, she was the first woman to win the coveted Perrier Award at the Edinburgh festival and hasn’t stopped banging on about it ever since. She has recently finished touring the UK with her latest live stand-up show Old Dog New Tricks, and released a book Chin Up, Britain for right-minded men and women who are fed up with shilly-shallying in 2010.
Some of you might recognize her from TV, small screen highlights include, the ‘Grumpy Old Women’ series, plus the ‘Grumpy Guides’, ‘Grumpy Holidays’ and ‘It’s Grim Up North’. She also frequently crops up on day time telly as a regular on Loose Women and gets very excited about doing things like This Morning.
Last year she came third in the tenth series of I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here and has since developed a taste for kangaroo anus.
Weirdly enough Eclair was actually trained as a straight actress and has done ’acting’ on ‘Holby City’, ‘The Bill’ and ‘Skins’. In early 2009 she cropped up playing women of forty plus, in Al Murray’s Multiple Personality Disorder (ITV1).
Other TV credits include The Chase: Celebrity Special (ITV), That Sunday Night Show (ITV), Antiques Road Trip: Children in Need Special (BBC Two), The Apprentice: You’re Fired! (BBC Two), Celebrity Weakest Link (BBC Two), Celebrity Fame Academy (BBC One), The Joan Rivers Position and Room 101 (BBC Two), Empire’s Children, hosting The Perrier Awards (Channel 4), The BBC New Comedy Awards (BBC One), The British Comedy Awards... The Fun Goes On (ITV 2) and the Eurovision Song Contest (BBC Three). Jenny provided the voiceover for A Place in France (Channel 4) and Celebrity Fit Club (ITV1). She is also the voice of family Tax Credits, which is the sort of info that can come in useful at a pub quiz.
Stage wise, Éclair has recently survived her first pantomime season, appearing as the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella at Richmond Theatre. Her biggest hit to date has been co-writing (with Judith Holder) and starring in ‘Grumpy Old Women Live’ and Grumpy Old Women Live: 2 Chin Up Britain, a two hour extravaganza that toured the UK, Australia and recently opened (in Finnish) in Helsinki, the show (in English) is now available on DVD. Grumpy Old Women Live 2: Chin Up Britain enjoyed an 8 week West End run at the Novello Theatre last spring.
Other West End theatre credits include ‘Steaming’, ‘Mum’s the Word’ and ‘The Vagina Monologues’. Most recently she appeared in the title role of ‘The Killing of Sister George’ for the Derby Playhouse, unfortunately she spent the entire time she was on stage looking like a fat Margaret Thatcher.
Eclair is a writer as much as a performer (sometimes it’s nice to just sit down). She has co-written (with Julie Balloo) a number of one-woman plays including the critically acclaimed ‘Andy Warhol Syndrome’, which was also adapted for BBC Radio 4. She is the author of two novels ‘Camberwell Beauty’ and ‘Having a Lovely Time’, whilst her non fiction books include, ‘The Book of Bad Behaviour’, ‘Grumpy Old Couples’ and ‘Wendy The Bumper Book of Fun for Women of a Certain Age’ (both of which were co-written with Judith Holder). Radio writing credits include the two series of Twilight Baby (co-written with Julie Balloo) for Women’s Hour on BBC Radio 4 and the much repeated On Baby Street.
She is an enthusiastic hired hack, happy to contribute to various newspapers and magazines, as well as being a willing, if stupidly inept and overly competitive guest on radio panels games such as ‘Just a Minute’, ‘Hot Gossip’ and ‘Banter’ (Radio 4). She lives in South London with St Geof of Camberwell and has a daughter who has recently finished university.
Her (as yet) untitled third novel should be released next Summer.
