FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 10, 2007

John Oliver, Comedian and Correspondent for the “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” to Perform at Webster University

What/Who:
John Oliver, comedian and correspondent for the hit television series “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” will perform at Webster University. Along with a career in stand-up, Oliver’s previous credits include “The Department” with Chris Addison and Andy Zaltzman, “Political Animal,” “Fighting Talk,” “My Hero” and “Mock the Week.”

When: 
Monday, February 18, 2008; 7 p.m.

Where:
Loretto-Hilton Center, Webster University
130 Edgar Rd.

Cost:
Tickets are $10 for the general public and can be purchased at the University Center Information Desk located at 175 Edgar Rd beginning Monday, January 14. Cash or Checks Only. Tickets are free to people with a current Webster ID.

More Info:
Call 314-246-7708 or email campusactivities@webster.edu or go to:
http://www.webster.edu/studlife/uc/campusactivities/johnoliver.html

Biography:

John Oliver was born and raised in England, Great Britain, in the year of punk 1977. His passport lists his occupation as "comedian" and, as we all know, passports never lie.

He has worked as a stand-up comedian around the UK entertaining and irritating audiences in equal measure for the last 7 years and has regularly taken shows to the Edinburgh Festival.

With his friend and long time collaborator Andy Zaltzman, Oliver wrote and starred in three seasons of "The Department" for BBC Radio 4. The series centered around a three man think tank which each week solved one of the world's major problems. Hopefully one day it will be available on CD but, as things stand, it looks like that will be the same day that you can first don ice skates and pirouette across the fiery rivers of hell. Zaltzman and Oliver also wrote and presented "Political Animal" linking the satirical material of various stand-ups with sketches including firing themselves out of a water canon at a crowd of protestors; contracting bird flu and getting into a gun fight with the Queen.

Oliver also wrote and presented the current BBC America campaign to have viewers use closed captioning (subtitles). Shown in brief segments before shows, "The following program contains accents you would have heard a lot more if you hadn't thrown our tea into Boston Harbor," says one. "Not even British people can follow the British accent 100 percent of the time. Therefore you, like me, might want to use closed-captioning."

In the course of his career, Oliver has received no awards worth mentioning but did receive a letter of complaint from Buckingham Palace, which is clearly a lot better.

When "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" came knocking at his door, Oliver flung it open and jumped into their arms with a relish which made all parties slightly uncomfortable. He is very pleased to ply his trade in your country. And, to be honest, he had all but burnt his bridges in his own native country.
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