Aisling Bea

Aisling Clíodhnadh O'Sullivan (born 16 March 1984), known professionally as Aisling Bea ( ), is an Irish comedian, actress and screenwriter. She created, wrote and starred in the comedy series This Way Up on Channel 4. As a stand-up comedian, she won the So You Think You're Funny award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2012, being only the second woman to win the award in its then-25-year history. She also appears regularly on light entertainment comedy panel shows such as QI and 8 Out of 10 Cats and was a contestant on comedy game show Taskmaster.

Early life and education

Bea was born Aisling Cliodhnadh O'Sullivan in Kildare, Ireland. Her father, Brian, was a horse veterinarian who died by suicide when Bea was three years old; she was not told how he had died until she was 13. She adopted the stage surname "Bea" as a tribute to her father, taking it from a short form of his first name. Bea and her younger sister, Sinéad (who is now a Hollywood costume designer), were raised by their mother, Helen (née Moloney), a secondary school teacher who had previously trained jockeys at the Racing Academy and Centre of Education. She was also a professional flat-race jockey, and later ran a jockey school. Her family was "obsessed" with horses and race meetings.

Her great-aunt was playwright Siobhán Ní Shúilleabháin, and musician Liam O'Flynn was a family friend. It has been said that Bea's grandfather is Gaelic poet, Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, but this has been disputed.

In her youth, Bea worked as a tour guide at the Irish National Stud. However, she knew from a young age that she was not interested in the horse racing industry; instead, she had a passion for performing.

Bea was educated at Presentation Secondary School, Kildare Town, a convent school. She studied French and philosophy at Trinity College Dublin. While there, she was an active member of the drama society, and part of a student sketch comedy group. She then studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). She has said she did not enjoy this experience, but that it has helped with her comedy.

Career

After graduating from drama school, Bea spent two years trying to get work in theatre as a dramatic actress. Instead, she was cast mainly in comedic television series including Cardinal Burns and Sharon Horgan's Dead Boss (both 2012). While filming Dead Boss in 2011, Bea decided to try stand-up comedy. In 2012, she was the first woman in 20 years (and only the second in its history) to win the Gilded Balloon So You Think You're Funny award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In 2013, she was nominated for Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards for her show C'est La Bea.

The exposure brought by these awards and festival appearances marked a "turning point" in Bea's career and she began to appear as a regular guest on panel shows including QI and Insert Name Here. Bea and Yasmine Akram co-wrote and co-hosted the BBC Radio 4 comedy folklore series Micks and Legends (2012, 2015); it was nominated for a Chortle Award in 2013. Bea won the 2014 British Comedy Award for Best Female TV Comic, and returned to Edinburgh in 2015 with the live show Plan Bea. In 2015, she presented Channel 4's alternative election coverage with David Mitchell and Jeremy Paxman. In 2016, she became a team captain on 8 Out of 10 Cats and was a contestant on series 5 of Taskmaster in 2017.

Bea has continued to act in television sitcoms including Trollied (2014–2015), The Delivery Man (2015), Amy Huberman's Irish television series Finding Joy (2018), and Living with Yourself (2019). She acted in the crime dramas The Fall (2016) and Hard Sun (2018), She starred in the ITV drama series Quiz (2020) based off the true story of the Who Wants to be a Millionaire coughing scandal.

In 2018, she and Sara Pascoe began to co-host the BBC Radio 2 comedy chat show What's Normal? She recorded a 15-minute stand-up special that was released on Netflix in late 2018.

Bea wrote and starred in the Channel 4 comedy series This Way Up (2019–2021). For her writing, she won the BAFTA 2020 British Academy Television Craft Award for Breakthrough Talent. In 2022, she also received a nomination for British Academy Television Award for Best Female Comedy Performance for the series.

In January 2024, Bea was one of 10 comedians in Amazon Prime Video's '.