Andrew Doyle (comedian)

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Andrew Doyle
Andrew Doyle on Reason TV.jpg
Doyle interviewed on Reason TV in 2021
Born1978/1979 (age 42–43)[1]
Derry, Northern Ireland
MediumPrint, theatre, Twitter
EducationWadham College, Oxford (MA, DPhil)
GenresPolitical satire
Notable works and rolesSpiked magazine, Jonathan Pie

Andrew Doyle is a comedian, playwright, journalist, and political satirist from Northern Ireland, who co-created the fictional character Jonathan Pie and created the character Titania McGrath.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] In 2021, Doyle joined GB News to host a weekly show titled Free Speech Nation.[9]

Early life and education[]

Doyle is from an Irish Catholic background, and was born in Derry, Northern Ireland.[10][11] Andrew Doyle completed his undergraduate studies at Aberystwyth before going on to do a Masters at the University of York.[12] He also holds a doctorate in early Renaissance poetry from the University of Oxford, having studied at Wadham College, Oxford.[13]

Career[]

Doyle regularly writes for Spiked, and runs a comedy night in London called Comedy Unleashed. He has performed his stand-up shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, four of which have also been performed at the Soho Theatre, London. He has appeared on Sky News as a commentator, and as a panel-member on The Moral Maze on BBC Radio 4. He has been a speaker at the Battle of Ideas Festival in London, an annual event hosted by the Institute of Ideas.[14]

He is also a visiting research fellow at Queen's University, Belfast. Doyle originally worked as a teacher, including alongside Simon Warr at Royal Hospital School.[15]

He created the fictional character of Titania McGrath in April 2018 through the creation of an anonymous Twitter account for the character. The twitter account is a parody Twitter account that was, according to Doyle, designed to mock contemporary "woke culture", as "the majority of people are desperate for this culture to be mocked".[16] McGrath's Twitter account has been suspended for alleged hate speech four times, notably on 9 December 2018,[1][17] her account has more than 500,000 followers.[18] Doyle has written two books under the guise of the character. The first was Woke: A Guide to Social Justice published 7 March 2019[19] and a children's book, My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism published September 2020.[20] In March 2019, Doyle was contacted by Rosamund Urwin, a journalist at The Sunday Times, who asked whether he was the person behind McGrath's Twitter account, due to the inclusion of several sources in McGrath's book that he had quoted previously. Though he denied it, he later revealed himself as the man behind the account.[16]

In 2021 it was announced Doyle was to host a weekly show titled Free Speech Nation on GB News.[9] He also regularly appears as a commentator in other shows on GB News.

Political views[]

Doyle considers himself to be left-wing and criticises political correctness and identity politics. He is a Brexit supporter.[21][22] Doyle supported Jeremy Corbyn during the 2017 United Kingdom general election.[23]

Publications[]

Doyle is the co-author with Tom Walker of Jonathan Pie: Off the Record (2017).[24] He is also the author of Titania McGrath's Woke: A Guide to Social Justice (2019). It was positively received by a large number of celebrities such as Ricky Gervais, as well as numerous right-leaning commentators. However it was negatively reviewed by Alex Clark in The Guardian, writing that Doyle was making a cheap shot by poking fun at identity politics.[25] Doyle used the Titania McGrath pseudonym for My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism (2020), published by Little, Brown in September 2020.[20][26][27][28] He is the author of Free Speech and Why It Matters (2021).[29]

Personal life[]

Doyle is gay.[30] His uncle is political activist Eamonn Melaugh.[31]

Plays[]

  • Borderland
  • Jimmy Murphy Makes Amends (BBC Radio 4)
  • The Second Mr Bailey (BBC Radio 4)
  • Reacher's Point (BBC Radio 4)

Bibliography[]

  • Jonathan Pie: Off The Record (2017)
  • Titania McGrath’s Woke: A Guide to Social Justice (2019)
  • Titania McGrath's: My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism (2020)
  • Free Speech and Why It Matters (2021)

References[]

  1. ^ a b Turner, Janice (8 March 2019). "Woke: A Guide to Social Justice by Titania McGrath review — how to be a modern leftie". The Times. Archived from the original on 8 March 2019. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  2. ^ Urwin, Rosamund (3 March 2019). "Woke Twitter spoof Titania McGrath might be a man". The Sunday Times. ISSN 0956-1382. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
  3. ^ "Why I invented Titania McGrath". spiked-online.com. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
  4. ^ Smith, Adam J.; Waugh, Jo. "Titania McGrath: Twitter parody of 'wokeness' owes a lot to satirists of the 18th century". The Conversation. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
  5. ^ Lyons, Izzy (6 March 2019). "Titania McGrath: 'Queen of woke Twitter culture' sheds his online mask". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 26 May 2019.
  6. ^ "Final Shows Announced at Pleasance To Complete A Bumper Programme Of 265 Shows". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved 26 May 2019.
  7. ^ "The comedian behind 'woke and radical intersectionalist poet' Titania McGrath speaks out". Fox News Channel. Retrieved 26 May 2019.
  8. ^ "Titania McGrath's tired and unfunny "joke" is just the old sneering at the young". New Statesman. Retrieved 26 May 2019.
  9. ^ a b GB News [@GBNEWS] (18 March 2021). "Comedian, writer and cultural commentator @andrewdoyle_com is joining GB News" (Tweet). Retrieved 18 March 2021 – via Twitter.
  10. ^ Andrew Doyle Friendly Fire The List, www.list.co.uk.
  11. ^ Coyle, Conor (22 December 2019). "Young actors wanted for new Lyric Theatre musical". Belfast Live. Retrieved 7 December 2020.
  12. ^ Maxwell, Dominic (22 February 2021). "Pro-Brexit, anti-woke: the comic breaking all the rules". The Times.
  13. ^ Paige, Jonathan (7 March 2019). "Unmasked: Twitter satirist who pokes fun at 'woke'". The Times. Retrieved 31 December 2019.
  14. ^ Speakers Andrew Doyle Battle of Ideas Festival
  15. ^ "RIP Simon Warr". www.spiked-online.com. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
  16. ^ a b Lyons, Izzy (6 March 2019). "Titania McGrath: 'Queen of woke Twitter culture' sheds his online mask". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 6 March 2019. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  17. ^ Elfwick, Godfrey (10 December 2019). "Welcome back Titania McGrath!". The Spectator. Archived from the original on 3 February 2019. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  18. ^ "Titania McGrath on Twitter". Retrieved 1 September 2019 – via Twitter.
  19. ^ Woke: A Guide to Social Justice. ASIN 1472130847.
  20. ^ a b "My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism". Little, Brown and Company. Retrieved 14 June 2020.
  21. ^ "'Why did the lefty cross the road?' How liberal Edinburgh comics are panning PC". The Guardian. 25 August 2017. Retrieved 2 December 2020.
  22. ^ Applebaum, Anne (29 January 2020). "Brexit Reveals a Whole New Set of Political Wounds". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2 December 2020.
  23. ^ Doyle, Andrew (18 May 2019). "I went to war with the PC police – and gained 260K followers". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 22 May 2019. Retrieved 14 June 2019.
  24. ^ "Jonathan Pie: Off the Record - Jonathan Pie; Andrew Doyle; Tom Walker; | Foyles Bookstore". Foyles. Retrieved 12 December 2020.
  25. ^ Clark, Alex (10 March 2019). "Titania McGrath: laugh if you want, but woke's no joke". The Guardian. ISSN 0029-7712. Retrieved 8 December 2020.
  26. ^ Dessau, Bruce (23 July 2019). "News: Alice Marshall To Play Titania McGrath". Beyond The Joke. Retrieved 23 July 2019.
  27. ^ McGrath, Titania (5 July 2020). My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism. ISBN 978-1-4721-3427-1.
  28. ^ Jameson, Greg. "Titania McGrath – My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism review". Retrieved 8 December 2020.
  29. ^ Shriver, Lionel. "Free Speech and Why It Matters by Andrew Doyle review — why the free speech crisis is no joke". ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 27 February 2021.
  30. ^ Resisting Wokeness: Andrew Doyle and Douglas Murray in conversation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIJPUX6SYu4
  31. ^ "'If the state had treated people equally, none of this would have happened'". Spiked. 14 August 2019. Retrieved 7 December 2020.
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