Derren Litten was born in 1969 in the northern fishing town of Hull; thankfully things have improved greatly since then. Graduating from The Central School of Speech and Drama in 1993 he quickly became a regular face on numerous television shows and countless TV commercials. In 2002 Derren’s friend from drama school, Catherine Tate, asked him to write for her Edinburgh sketch show. Although he had never written comedy before It was thought he would be the ideal man for the job as he often said funny things and would do it for nothing. Although Catherine knew people funnier than Derren, thankfully none of them could beat his rates. When Catherine was offered her own TV series on BBC2 Derren became a main writer; he also performed in the show as they remembered at the last minute that he is rather marvellous at acting too. In 2005 Derren was noiminated for a BAFTA Craft Award in the “New Writer” category. After two series and a Christmas Special (pulling in a record audience of over 5 million viewers), Derren decided it was time to concentrate on his own projects and turned down the offer to be involved in a third series. He has since written for many of his comedy heroes including John Sullivan, Barry Humphries and Harry Enfield and also found the time to write (and perform in) two series of his own sitcom, “Benidorm” - the first of which aired in February 2007 and the second is filming now. Despite being from the north and a member of The Magic Circle, surprisingly, he finds very few people get the urge to punch him in the face. www.derrenlitten.com Back to Artistes