| Birth Name: | Lucy Ann Beaumont |
| Birth Place: | Truro, Cornwall, England |
| Alma Mater: | University of Hull |
| Years Active: | 2009–present |
| Children: | 1 |
Lucy Ann Beaumont[1] (born 1983[2]) is a British actress, writer, and stand-up comedian from Kingston upon Hull, England. Her performance is based largely on anecdotes about Hull and the wider Northern England region.[3] She was a finalist on So You Think You're Funny in 2011 and won the BBC Radio New Comedy Awards in 2012. Her 2014 debut show at the Edinburgh Fringe, We Can Twerk It Out,[3] was nominated for that year's Best Newcomer Award.
Born prematurely in Truro while her parents were on holiday in Cornwall, Beaumont grew up with a single mother[4] in the Spring Bank area of Hull. She later lived in the town of Hessle, near Hull.[5] [6] Her mother is the playwright Gill Adams, who won the Fringe First Award for best new play in 1997 at the Edinburgh Festival.[7] She attended Hessle High School,[8] before going on to Wyke Sixth Form College.[9] Beaumont worked at the meat counter of Asda on Hessle Road, West Hull,[10] and later went on to the University of Hull, graduating with a degree in drama studies.[6]
After university, she briefly worked as a teaching assistant. When one of her first acting jobs after university fell through, Beaumont took on a job as a cleaner at the university to make a living, leading her to joke later that she was probably the only person with both a BA and an NVQ from the University of Hull.[11] [10]
Beaumont had a brief acting career,[12] touring with Hull Truck Theatre,[13] [10] York Theatre Royal and West Yorkshire Playhouse.[14] She switched to comedy after she had initially tried it in an attempt to conquer stage fright[15] and was inspired by her sitcom-like life in Hull.[11] In 2009, she took part in the BBC's Northern Laughs programme,[16] where she was mentored by Jeremy Dyson.[17]
Beaumont is known for her observational comedy about her home city of Hull including the local dialect and food such as patties and chip spice.[11] Her on-stage persona delivers deadpan anecdotes and has been described as "ditzily naïve".[18]
Her first gig was for the 2011 So You Think You're Funny competition,[19] for which she would later become a finalist.[20]
She co-wrote and starred in the radio sitcom To Hull and Back, starring fellow Hull actor Maureen Lipman. The sitcom started with a pilot on BBC Radio 2 in 2014, and a full series was ordered.[21] Three series of the show were broadcast between 2015 and 2018.[22] She wrote an article in The Guardian about Hull in 2015 as it prepared to be UK City of Culture.[23] In 2017, Beaumont presented the BBC Two documentary Welcome to Hull – City of Culture 2017.[24] Beaumont is also the narrator in the 2018 BBC documentary Hull's Headscarf Heroes about Lillian Bilocca and the 1968 Triple Trawler Disaster.[25] Beaumont said that the story moved her especially because her grandparents and their families were "born and bred in the fishing community on [Hull's] Hessle Road."[26]
In 2013, Beaumont won the Chortle Award for Best Newcomer and appeared on BBC Three's Live at the Electric. She presented her show We Can Twerk It Out at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2014 nominated for that year's Best Newcomer Award.[27]
She was a guest on Dave's in 2015 and on the BBC Two panel quiz show QI in 2016. She has been a regular guest on the Dave panel show , hosted by her husband Jon Richardson, in 2018 and 2019.[28]
In 2019, Beaumont returned to the Edinburgh Festival with her show Space Mam,[29] which she also took on tour in the UK.
Beaumont was team captain for the University of Hull team on BBC Two's 2019 Christmas University Challenge. Although they won their first round, the score was insufficient to advance to the semi-finals.[30] Beaumont also made her first appearance on 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown alongside her husband Jon Richardson, Sean Lock and Bob Mortimer for the 2019 Christmas special.[31]
A comedy series, Meet the Richardsons, written by Beaumont and Tim Reid was broadcast on Dave from February 2020;[32] it is a documentary-style sitcom with Beaumont and Richardson playing exaggerated versions of themselves.[33] A two-part Christmas Special aired from 9 December 2020[34] and a second series followed in April 2021. The third series began broadcasting in March 2022, with the fourth series airing from 6 April 2023.
In 2021, Channel 4 commissioned a comedy series called Hullraisers from Beaumont, co-written with Anne-Marie O'Connor and Caroline Moran.[35] [36] [37] Beaumont also released her first book Drinking Custard: Diary of a Confused Mum, which details her struggles with her pregnancy and motherhood.[38] [39]
In 2022, Beaumont appeared in an episode of the revival series of The Weakest Link, hosted by Romesh Ranganathan. She was voted out in round 3.
Beaumont was a contestant in the 16th series of Taskmaster, broadcast September–November 2023. She was placed last.[40] Den of Geeks Louisa Mellor praised her as consistently funny and interesting for her "child-like joy" during tasks and strange anecdotes from her childhood.[41]
In 2024, Beaumont told a story on the panel show Would I Lie to You? (and later on episode 237 of the comedy podcast Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster)[42] about pretending to have type 1 diabetes to get food on a plane. The diabetes research charity JDRF condemned the show's use of the story for humour.[43]
Since 2024, Beaumont has co-hosted the Lucy & Sam's Perfect Brains podcast with Sam Campbell.[44]
| Year | Title | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018–2019 | Guest | ||
| 2019 | Christmas University Challenge | Team captain | |
| 2019–present | 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown | Guest | |
| 2020–present | Meet the Richardsons | Writer | |
| 2021 | Richard Osman's House of Games | Contestant | |
| Jon & Lucy's Christmas Sleepover | Co-host with Jon Richardson | ||
| 2022 | One Night In... Legoland (with Josh Widdicombe and Alex Brooker) | Guest with Jon Richardson | |
| The Weakest Link | Contestant | ||
| Big Zuu's Big Eats | Guest | ||
| Jon & Lucy's Party of the Year | Co-host with Jon Richardson[45] | ||
| 2022–2023 | Celebrity Gogglebox | With Jon Richardson | |
| 2022–present | Hullraisers | Writer | |
| 2023–present | Would I Lie to You? | Contestant; multiple episodes[46] [47] | |
| 2023 | Jon & Lucy's Odd Couples | Co-host with Jon Richardson | |
| The Last Leg | Guest[48] | ||
| The Chris & Rosie Ramsey Show | Guest | ||
| The Great Stand Up to Cancer Bake Off | Contestant[49] | ||
| Have I Got News For You | Guest[50] | ||
| Taskmaster | Contestant | ||
| 2024 | The Wheel | Expert[51] |
In 2019, Beaumont set up the project "Backpack Buddies" in Hull to help children in need of meals during the school holidays.[10] [53] To raise funds for the project, Beaumont staged the HULLarity comedy gala in June 2019.[54]
Beaumont supports several UK charities, including Hull Children's University,[55] Mothershare[56] and the Great Laugh campaign.[17] [10]
Beaumont married comedian Jon Richardson in April 2015 after being match-made by fellow comedian Roisin Conaty.[57] They have a daughter born in 2016.[58] [10] Beaumont and Richardson announced their separation in April 2024.[59] [60]
In 2023, she stated publicly that she had been diagnosed with ADHD.[61]