Kiri Pritchard-McLean


Kiri Louise Pritchard-McLean is a comedian and writer. Born in Gloucester, she was raised on a farm in Llanbedrgoch on the island of Anglesey, Wales. She has performed for several consecutive years at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and won two Chortle Awards.

Comedy career

She is the director and writer for sketch group Gein's Family Giftshop who were nominated for Best Newcomer in 2014 for the Edinburgh Comedy Award. As a sketch group they were also nominated for Chortle Awards in 2015. She took her debut show Hysterical Woman to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2016. It transferred to the Soho Theatre for a run in June 2017. Her 2017 Edinburgh Fringe show was called Appropriate Adult and 2018's show was called Victim, Complex. Both shows were critically acclaimed and also transferred to Soho Theatre the following year.
Pritchard-McLean has appeared on Have I Got News for You, Russell Howard's Stand Up Central on Comedy Central and ITV's Elevenish, and Channel 4's 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown as well as multiple appearances on the BBC Radio 4 shows The Now Show, The News Quiz and Elis James' State of the Nation.
She is also co-host of the podcast All Killa No Filla along with fellow comedian Rachel Fairburn.
In 2019 Pritchard-McLean became the host of the BBC Radio 4 Extra satirical sketch show Newsjack. In September 2019, she presented an edition of The News Quiz. In January 2020, she appeared as a panellist on Would I Lie to You alongside David Mitchell and Jo Brand.

Comedy awards

Pritchard-McLean won Best Compere and Best Club Comedian at the Chortle Awards in 2018,
Best Compere and Breakthrough Act at the Chortle Awards in 2019,
and Best Compere at the Chortle Awards in 2020.
She was awarded the Caroline Aherne Bursary in 2020. The bursary, which was launched in memory of comedy star Caroline Aherne and is aimed at new writer/performers from the North of England and awards £5,000 to the successful applicant to enable them to receive support from the BBC. Kiri will also receive mentorship from a BBC Comedy Commissioning Editor to develop a comedy script..

Personal life

Pritchard-McLean was previously in a relationship with comedian James Meehan from sketch group Gein's Family Gift Shop but split in 2017 with both using their experience of the break-up to create Edinburgh Fringe shows in 2018. Kiri Pritchard-McLean’s show focused on the accusation that Meehan gaslighted her during the relationship.