Rachel Parris

Some Lesser Known Facts About Rachel Parris

• Rachel Parris actively participated in plays, choirs, jazz, and recitals during her graduation studies at St Hilda’s College at the University of Oxford.

• In 2007, she started performing improvisation comedy (improv) with The Oxford Imps, an improvisation troupe at the University of Oxford.

• She worked as an administrative assistant at the Classical Opera Company from February 2009 to August 2009.

• In 2009, she worked as the Business Affairs Assistant at the Royal Ballet and Opera in London for three months.

• In 2009 she participated with other members of the Oxford Imps in season 10 of the British quiz show, Eggheads, on BBC Two.

  

• Since 2010, she has been performing musical comedy.

• In 2010, she was the second runner-up at The Funny Women Awards, a competition conducted by Funny Women, a community to support female comedians.

• In 2012, she won the runner-up position at the Musical Comedy Awards (MCAs), an annual competition for musical comedians.

• She was one of the founders of the popular improv comedy show Austentatious: An Improvised Jane Austen Novel, which premiered in London in 2011. Since 2012, the show has been performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (the world’s largest performance art festival) and on BBC Radio 4. In 2014, it won the Chortle Award for the best character, improv, or sketch act.

  

• She participated in various competitions and was the finalist in Hackney Empire’s New Act of the Year (2011) and Leicester Square Theatre New Comedian of the Year (2011). She was also a semi-finalist in the annual competition for stand-up comedy new acts, So You Think You’re Funny (2011).

• She has performed several solo comedy shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, featured in season 14 of the stand-up comedy programme Live at the Apollo (2018), and tours including It’s Fun to Pretend (2018) and Poise (2024).

  

• Some of the television series she acted in are Murder in Successville (2015-2016) as Lady Gaga/ Tess Daly/ Sarah Millican, M.O.T.H.E.R Knows Best (2018) as M.O.T.H.E.R, and There She Goes (2018) as Katy.

• She was part of the news show The Mash Report (2017-2020), which aired on BBC Two. In 2022, she hosted the show after it restarted as Late Night Mash on the U&Dave network.

  

• She has appeared on popular television game shows such as QI (Quite Interesting) and Would I Lie To You (WILTY).

• She has also appeared on BBC radio shows such as I’m Sorry, I Haven’t a Clue and The Now Show.

• She wrote the television movie A Girl’s Guide to TV with Tom Neenan, which was broadcast on the BBC network during the ‘Hear Her’ season as part of the 100th-anniversary celebrations in honour of women’s winning the right to vote in the UK.

• She appeared on podcasts including Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast (RHLSTP) and The Guilty Feminist hosted by Deborah Frances-White.

• In 2022, she authored the book Advice from Strangers: Everything I Know From People I Don’t Know (2022).

  

• She and Archie Henderson (Jazz Emu) are the singers in the music video Dave: We Also Wrote A Song (2023).

• She co-hosts a podcast with her husband Marcus Brigstocke, How Was It For You? (2024) streamed on Spotify.