Lucy Beaumont (comedian)


Lucy Beaumont is a British actress, writer and stand-up comedienne from Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire. Her act is based largely on anecdotes about Hull and the wider Northern England region. She won the BBC Radio New Comedy Award in 2012 and was a finalist on So You Think You're Funny in 2011. Her 2014 debut show at the Edinburgh Festival, We Can Twerk it Out, was nominated for that year's Best Newcomer Award.

Early life

Beaumont grew up in the Spring Bank area of Hull and later lived in the village of Hessle, near Hull. Her mother is the playwright Gill Adams, who won the Fringe First Award for best new play in 1997 at the Edinburgh Festival. Beaumont once worked at the meat counter of Asda on Hessle Road, West Hull. She attended Wyke sixth form college and went on to Hull University, graduating with a degree in drama studies. After university, she briefly worked as a teaching assistant. When one of her first acting jobs after university fell through, Beaumont took on a job as a cleaner at the university to make a living, leading her to joke later that she was probably the only person with both a BA and an NVQ from Hull University.

Career

Beaumont had a brief acting career, touring with Hull Truck Theatre, York Theatre Royal and West Yorkshire Playhouse. She switched to comedy after she had initially tried it in an attempt to conquer stage fright and was inspired by her sitcom-like life in Hull. In 2009, she took part in the BBC's Northern Laughs programme, where she was mentored by Jeremy Dyson.
Beaumont is known for her observational comedy about her home city of Hull including the local dialect and food like patties and chip spice. Her on-stage persona delivers deadpan anecdotes and has been described as "ditzily naïve".
Her first gig was for the 2011 So You Think You're Funny competition, for which she would later become a finalist.
She co-wrote and starred in the radio sitcom To Hull and Back, starring fellow Hull actor Maureen Lipman. She wrote an article in The Guardian about Hull in 2015 as it prepared to be UK City of Culture. In 2017, Beaumont presented the BBC Two documentary Welcome to Hull – City of Culture 2017. Beaumont is also the narrator in the 2018 BBC documentary Hull's Headscarf Heroes about Lillian Bilocca and the 1968 Triple Trawler Disaster. Beaumont said that the story moved her especially because her grandparents and their families were "born and bred in the fishing community on Hessle Road."
In 2013, Beaumont won the Chortle Award for Best Newcomer and appeared on BBC Three's Live at the Electric. She presented her show We Can Twerk it Out at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2014 nominated for that year's Best Newcomer Award.
Beaumont's radio sitcom To Hull and Back received a pilot on BBC Radio 2 in 2014 and a full series was ordered. Three series of the show were broadcast between 2015 and 2018.
She was a guest on Dave's ' in 2015 and on the BBC Two panel quiz show QI in 2016. She has been a regular guest on Dave panel show ', hosted by her husband Jon Richardson, in 2018 and 2019.
In 2019, Beaumont returned to the Edinburgh Festival with her show Space Mam, which she also took on tour in the UK.
Beaumont was team captain for the University of Hull team on BBC Two's 2019 Christmas University Challenge. Although they won their first round, the score was insufficient to advance to the semi-finals.
A comedy series Meet the Richardsons was broadcast on Dave in the UK; it is a documentary-style sitcom with Beaumont and Richardson playing exaggerated versions of themselves. The show is written by Beaumont and Tim Reid and is scheduled to air for six hour-long episodes in 2020.

Personal life

Beaumont married comedian Jon Richardson in April 2015. They have a daughter, Elsie Louise, born September 2016. They live in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire.

Charity work

In 2019, Beaumont set up the project "Backpack Buddies" in Hull to help children in need of meals during the school holidays. To raise funds for the project, Beaumont staged the HULLarity comedy gala in June 2019.
Beaumont actively supports several UK charities, including Hull Children's University, Mothershare, and the Great Laugh campaign.