Tim Vine

Tim Vine is the undisputed king of the one liners and before the welcoming applause has died down he'll have rattled off five or more jokes.

Tim Vine was born in Cheam, Greater London in 1967 and is the younger brother of journalist and Radio 2 presenter Jeremy Vine.

Tim started his stand up career back in the mid-1990s and was a runner up at the Hackney Empire New Act of the Year in 1993.

He first went to the Edinburgh Festival in 1995 and won the Best Newcomer award for his show The Tim Vine Fiasco.

He has been a regular at the festival, even using puns to name his shows such as Current Puns, The Punslinger and The Joke-Amotive.

Tim has now released three live DVDs, the most recent being The Punslinger, released in November 2010.

Tim Vine is a master of puns. He rattles off a barrage of one-liners so fast that you won't know what hit you. So quick is he that he once held the world record for the most jokes told in one hour with 499.

He'll even use a variety of props to get a laugh, even if he only has to use them once.

READ OUR 'BIG' INTERVIEW WITH TIM VINE HERE

Tim's jokes are a simple set up and punch line but he might even throw in a short song or if you're really lucky perform his pen behind the ear trick, with music. What's even better is when Tim himself is so impressed with his own gags that he lets out a celebratory 'come on!'

In fact Tim's gags are so good that they have on many occasions been wrongly attributed to Tommy Cooper.

Tim also won the Edinburgh Festival's funniest joke in 2010 for "I've just been on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday. I'll tell you what, never again."

Tim has the honour of co-launching Channel 5 with Julia Bradbury back in 1997 and presented the game show Whittle on the channel. He has also fronted Fort Boyard Takes On The World on Challenge, Housemates on BBC1 and Fluke on Channel 4.

Tim was part of the award winning The Sketch Show on ITV alongside friend Lee Mack and Jim Tavare.

Tim also plays the part of, imaginatively, Tim in BBC1's sitcom Not Going Out, again alongside Lee Mack. The series returns for a fourth series in 2010.

Tim is no stranger to celebrity gameshows either, having been a contestant on ITV's Spelling Bee in 2005 and winning his episode of Celebrity Mastermind with a specialist subject of Elvis Presley.

Tim Vine produces the sort of addictive comedy that you can enjoy with the whole family without feeling embarrassed that you are dumbing down. He's so infectious that even though you'll get jokes in the hundreds in a show, you'll still want more.

Did You Know?:

Tim Vine and his brother Jeremy once played in a band together called The Flared Generation. Lyrical content was no doubt clever word play on insightful political views.