Natalie Haynes is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 comedian

Comedian

A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...

 and writer. She has been performing stand-up comedy

Stand-up comedy

Stand-up comedy is a comedic art form. Usually, a comedian performs in front of a live audience, speaking directly to them. Their performances are sometimes filmed for later release via DVD, the internet, and television...

 since 1994 and was a member of Footlights

Footlights

Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club, commonly referred to simply as the Footlights, is an amateur theatrical club in Cambridge, England, founded in 1883 and run by the students of Cambridge University....

 at Cambridge University where she read Classics at Christ's College

Christ's College, Cambridge

Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.With a reputation for high academic standards, Christ's College averaged top place in the Tompkins Table from 1980-2000 . In 2011, Christ's was placed sixth.-College history:...

. She attended King Edward VI High School for Girls in Birmingham and was made a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association

British Humanist Association

The British Humanist Association is an organisation of the United Kingdom which promotes Humanism and represents "people who seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious beliefs." The BHA is committed to secularism, human rights, democracy, egalitarianism and mutual respect...

 in April 2010.

Radio

Haynes has been a panellist on We've Been Here Before, Banter

Banter (radio show)

Banter is a radio programme that is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in the UK, starring Andrew Collins and Richard Herring. The pilot and the first 2 series were broadcast from August 2005 to November 2006, and a third series was broadcast in April and May 2008. There have been 19 half-hour episodes so far...

, Quote... Unquote

Quote... Unquote

Quote... Unquote is a long-running panel game broadcast on BBC Radio 4 based on quotations. Every episode since the beginning of the series in 1976 has been chaired by its deviser, Nigel Rees. In July 2011, the programme began a new series, being broadcast at 1.30pm on Mondays, repeated on...

, Personality Test, and Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive

Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive

Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive is a British radio comedy programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2005 with a second series in 2006, a third in 2007 and a fourth in 2008. Series 2, 3 and 4 of the show were broadcast in the popular Friday evening slot, which it has shared with The...

on BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

. She has contributed to BBC 7

BBC 7

BBC Radio 4 Extra, formerly known as BBC 7 and BBC Radio 7, is a British digital radio station broadcasting comedy, drama, and children's programming nationally 24 hours a day. It is the principal broadcasting outlet for the BBC's archive of spoken-word entertainment...

 comedy review show, Serious About Comedy

Serious About Comedy

Serious About Comedy was a British comedy discussion show on the digital radio station BBC7, hosted by Robin Ince. It was broadcast at 08:30 and 22:00 on Fridays, and 03:00 on Saturdays, in series of 12 editions long. It started on 12 August 2005. The second series started on 10 February 2006. The...

and reviews film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

s for Front Row.

Her stand-up featured on Front Row

Front Row (radio)

Front Row is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. The BBC describes the programme as a "live magazine programme on the world of arts, literature, film, media and music." It is broadcast each week day between 7.15 and 7.45 and has a of highlights available for download. Shows usually include...

and Loose Ends

Loose Ends (radio)

Loose Ends is a British radio programme originally broadcast on Saturday mornings, and then transmitted early Saturday evenings from 1998 by BBC Radio 4. It was hosted by Ned Sherrin until he became ill in late 2006 with a reported throat infection, and later throat cancer...

on BBC Radio 4, on BBC 7

BBC 7

BBC Radio 4 Extra, formerly known as BBC 7 and BBC Radio 7, is a British digital radio station broadcasting comedy, drama, and children's programming nationally 24 hours a day. It is the principal broadcasting outlet for the BBC's archive of spoken-word entertainment...

's Spanking New. She has also appeared in the BBC Radio 4 Pick of the Fringe

Edinburgh Fringe

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world’s largest arts festival. Established in 1947 as an alternative to the Edinburgh International Festival, it takes place annually in Scotland's capital, in the month of August...

in 2004 and 2005. She has also appeared on Radio Five Live's Anita Anand

Anita Anand

-Early life:Anand was born in London, England to Pakistani Hindu parents from the North West Frontier, bordering on Afghanistan.-Education:Anand was educated at Bancroft's School, a co-educational independent school in the town of Woodford Green, in the suburb of Woodford in North East London,...

 Show, and MacAulay and Co.

MacAulay and Co.

MacAulay and Co. is a daily magazine show on BBC Radio Scotland, which is broadcast between 10.00am and 11.30am Monday to Friday. The programme is presented by comedian Fred MacAulay with a different guest presenter each week, and features a range of guests including journalists, musicians,...

on BBC Scotland

BBC Scotland

BBC Scotland is a constituent part of the British Broadcasting Corporation, the publicly-funded broadcaster of the United Kingdom. It is, in effect, the national broadcaster for Scotland, having a considerable amount of autonomy from the BBC's London headquarters, and is run by the BBC Trust, who...

.

In 2005 and 2006 Haynes wrote and presented documentaries on comic writers, for BBC Radio 4; modern female writers including Jessica Mitford

Jessica Mitford

Jessica Lucy Freeman-Mitford was an English author, journalist and political campaigner, who was one of the Mitford sisters...

 and Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker was an American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th century urban foibles....

, and Aristophanes

Aristophanes

Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...

, Juvenal

Juvenal

The Satires are a collection of satirical poems by the Latin author Juvenal written in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD.Juvenal is credited with sixteen known poems divided among five books; all are in the Roman genre of satire, which, at its most basic in the time of the author, comprised a...

 and Martial

Martial

Marcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...

.

She appears as a critic on Saturday Review

Saturday Review (radio)

Saturday Review is a weekly radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4 which "offers sharp, critical discussion of the week's cultural events", according to the show's website.It is currently presented by Tom Sutcliffe.-External links:*...

on BBC Radio 4

Television

Haynes is a regular panellist on BBC2's Newsnight Review and was the most-booked guest on More4's The Last Word. She appeared as a panellist on BBC 4's The Book Quiz

The Book Quiz

The Book Quiz is a BBC Four quiz programme. The first series, first broadcast in 2007, was hosted by David Baddiel with a second 2008 series hosted by Kirsty Wark.-Critical reception:...

, and on their Poetry Special alongside Andrew Motion

Andrew Motion

Sir Andrew Motion, FRSL is an English poet, novelist and biographer, who presided as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1999 to 2009.- Life and career :...

 and George Szirtes

George Szirtes

George Szirtes is a Hungarian-born British poet, writing in English, as well as a translator from the Hungarian language into English. He has lived in the United Kingdom for most of his life.-Life:...

. She also appeared on Backlash, a BBC2 documentary on voluntary childlessness, wrote and performed in the STV/Assembly Television Best of the Fest in August 2005. Haynes has been a panellist on BBC Four

BBC Four

BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....

’s quiz show, Mindgames, featured on Must Try Harder on BBC Two

BBC Two

BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...

 in 2006 and was the art and literature expert on the BBC Two quiz show Knowitalls.

In August 2007, she appeared on BBC Four's The Book Quiz

The Book Quiz

The Book Quiz is a BBC Four quiz programme. The first series, first broadcast in 2007, was hosted by David Baddiel with a second 2008 series hosted by Kirsty Wark.-Critical reception:...

hosted by David Baddiel

David Baddiel

David Lionel Baddiel is an English comedian, novelist and television presenter.-Early life:Baddiel was born in New York, and moved to England when he was four months old. His father, Colin Brian Baddiel, was a Welsh research chemist with Unilever before being made redundant in the 1980s, after...

. On the programme she admitted researching a book on Wikipedia in order to bluff having read it.

In April 2008 Haynes was a member of stand-up comedians team on University Challenge: The Professionals

University Challenge

University Challenge is a British quiz programme that has aired since 1962. The format is based on the American show College Bowl, which ran on NBC radio from 1953 to 1957, and on NBC television from 1959 to 1970....

. Her team lost to the Ministry of Justice

Ministry of Justice (United Kingdom)

The Ministry of Justice is a ministerial department of the UK Government headed by the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, who is responsible for improvements to the justice system so that it better serves the public...

 by 100 points to 215. In November 2009 she appeared on BBC One

BBC One

BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

's Question Time

Question Time (TV series)

Question Time is a topical debate BBC television programme in the United Kingdom, based on Any Questions?. The show typically features politicians from at least the three major political parties as well as other public figures who answer questions put to them by the audience...

.

Journalism

Haynes has been a Guest Contributor for The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

 since October 2006, and a regular contributor to New Humanist

New Humanist

New Humanist is a monthly magazine published by the Rationalist Association in the UK. It has been in print for 125 years; starting out life as Watts's Literary Guide, founded by C. A. Watts in November 1885....

. She has also written for The Sunday Times

The Sunday Times

The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...

 Magazine, The Sunday Telegraph, The Big Issue

The Big Issue

The Big Issue is a street newspaper published in eight countries; it is written by professional journalists and sold by homeless individuals. It was founded by John Bird and Gordon Roddick in September 1991...

, Loaded

Loaded (magazine)

Loaded, first published in 1994, is a British magazine for men that is considered to be the "original lads' mag". Its motto is "For men who should know better".-History:...

, and The Independent

The Independent

The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...

.

Live shows

Haynes has toured from Dublin and Berlin to Manhattan - and has performed five Edinburgh Fringe

Edinburgh Fringe

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world’s largest arts festival. Established in 1947 as an alternative to the Edinburgh International Festival, it takes place annually in Scotland's capital, in the month of August...

 sell-out runs and national tours

• 2002 Six Degrees of Desolation (nominated for Perrier Award Best Newcomer)
• 2003 Troubled Enough
• 2004 Still Not Sorry
• 2005 Run Or Die
• 2006 Watching the Detectives

Haynes is the only comedian to have appeared at every Newbury Comedy Festival

Newbury Comedy Festival

The Newbury Comedy Festival is a festival of comedy which takes place every July in the West Berkshire town of Newbury.-History:It was launched in 2004. Committed to showcasing the best comedy talent working in the UK , the comedy festival has become an annual event , and the only fully curated...

.

Books

Haynes has written a non-fiction book, The Ancient Guide To Modern Life, on the subject of how living well in the present requires some recourse to the ancient world. It has been published by Profile Books in November 2010.

Her first children's novel, The Great Escape, was published by Simon & Schuster in September 2007. It won a PETA

Peta

Peta can refer to:* peta-, an SI prefix denoting a factor of 1015* Peta, Greece, a town in Greece* Peta, the Pāli word for a Preta, or hungry ghost in Buddhism* Peta Wilson, an Australian actress and model* Peta Todd, English glamour model...

 Proggy award, for best animal-friendly children's book, in 2008.

Haynes' contributed an essay to Serenity Found, a book about Joss Whedon

Joss Whedon

Joseph Hill "Joss" Whedon is an American screenwriter, executive producer, director, comic book writer, occasional composer and actor, founder of Mutant Enemy Productions and co-creator of Bellwether Pictures...

's television show, Firefly

Firefly (TV series)

Firefly is an American space western television series created by writer and director Joss Whedon, under his Mutant Enemy Productions label. Whedon served as executive producer, along with Tim Minear....

, edited by Jane Espenson

Jane Espenson

Jane Espenson is an American script writer and television producer who has worked on both situation comedies and serial dramas. She had a five-year stint as a writer and producer on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and shared a Hugo Award for her writing on the episode "Conversations with Dead People"...

, which was published in 2007 by BenBella Books. Her entries on subjects from Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie

Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...

 to E F Benson can be found in Cassell's Little Black Book Of Books, published in 2007.

External links

• Official site
• Haynes' page, Conville and Walsh
  Conville and Walsh
  Conville & Walsh Ltd is a literary agency founded by Patrick Walsh and Clare Conville in 2000, and based in Soho, London. The agency numbers six book agents in a staff of eleven.Conville and Walsh is a full member of the Association of Authors' Agents....
  
  literary agents