Breakthrough edit
Bird created a comedy panel show for BBC Three called The King Is Dead in 2010. The show features a hypothetical death of a well-known person, and a panel of three personalities compete to replace the deceased in a series of satirical challenges and quiz rounds. He hosted alongside Nick Mohammed and Katy Wix.
Bird starred in six seasons of Robert Popper’s single-camera comedy Friday Night Dinner, produced by Big Talk Productions, from 2011 to 2020. [15] At the Rose DOr Festival, it won Best Sitcom, just like The Inbetweeners. [16] An anniversary special honoring ten years of the popular sitcom Friday Night Dinner: Ten Years And A Lovely Bit Of Squirrel was broadcast by Channel 4 in 2021. [17].
In August 2011, Bird made a comeback as Will McKenzie in the film The Inbetweeners [18]. Two years later, in 2014, he played the same character in The Inbetweeners 2, the sequel to the first film about the Inbetweeners, which opened with the highest opening weekend gross of any movie in the UK that year. [19].
2013 saw Bird co-create, co-write, and co-star in the sitcom Chickens, which followed three men who stay in England in the midst of World War I. It debuted in the summer of 2013 on Sky1, and at the 2014 Broadcast Awards, it received a nomination for Best Comedy. [20].
He starred in Simon Callow’s West End production of The Philanthropist in 2017. [21] Dominic Cavendish, a theatre critic for The Telegraph, stated in his review that “Callow has definitely struck gold with leading man Simon Bird.” He is the thespian equivalent of a 3D printer, delivering the goods with subtle, incremental methods. [22].
Comedy website Chortle compared Birds’ 2022 All4 debut stand-up show Debrief, which was recorded in an empty theater, to “more like an experimental art-house movie than a stand-up special.” [23].
Bird starred in a new sitcom on Channel 4 called Everyone Else Burns, which debuted in 2023 and was produced by NBC Universal and Jax Media. [24] Time Magazine dubbed it “the greatest sitcom on network in a long time.” [25].
Producing edit
Guilty Party Pictures is an independent TV and film production company that was founded in 2015 by Bird and Jonny Sweet, with support from StudioCanal. Gods Own County, which was nominated for Best Short-Form Comedy at the 2019 Broadcast Awards, How Europe Stole My Mum, which The Guardian called “nothing short of a miracle,” and How We Forgot To Save The Planet, which took home the 2022 RTS Scotland Award for Best Comedy are just a few of the projects it produced. [40].
It was revealed in 2022 that Bird and Sweet, together with BBC Studios, were forming a new business called People Person Pictures. A Whole Lifetime With Jamie Demetriou on Netflix was created by them in 2023, and it went on to win the Rose DOr for Best Comedy Entertainment. [42] Wicked Little Letters, a 2024 release starring Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, and Timothy Spall, has also named People Person Pictures as a co-producing partner.
Contribute to this pageSuggest an edit or add missing content
FAQ
Is Simon Bird married?
Who is the oldest inbetweener?
Where does Simon Bird live?
Can Simon Bird play the violin?