Andrew McGibbon ( Andrew Paresi; born 1961 in Chiswick) is an English comedian, actor, writer, musician and composer. He has also produced and directed extensively, chiefly for radio.
Early life, family, and education Andrew is the fifth of six children (five brothers and a last-born sister) born to Gillian () and James McGibbon (1916-2004, Catholic educationalist, educational psychologist, writer, journalist, and editor). The couple married after meeting during the Second World War in the Middle East after encounters in Cairo, where James had travelled with the Eighth Army and been present at El Alamein, including serving with the Black Watch and various other regiments (rising through the ranks to become sergeant major), and in Palestine, where Gillian served with the WAC.
After Andrew did his initial studies at St Edmund's Primary, Whitton, and at Salesian College, he attended Richmond Tertiary College. It was here that he learnt to play the drums, his chief instrument. In 1980, despite thinking about attending Berklee School of Music, he left college to forge a career as a working musician.
Music career McGibbon initially associated himself closely with the London jazz scene, often rehearsing with Django Bates. However, he failed to make a significant impact, peaking with a performance alongside Lou Donaldson at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club on 22 March 1982.
The name Paresi was adopted around this time on the advice of his then girlfriend, who had found that it was an Italian medical term for embolism. "There was something appealing about naming myself after a heart attack", he remembers. "Some sort of post-punk bollocks, I guess, which meant a lot to me back in 1982".
His first big break came on 7 November 1984 with an appearance on Tyne Tees children's pop show Razzamatazz as the drummer in Jim Diamond's band. Given the success of his number one hit I Should Have Known Better, a subsequent appearance by Paresi on Top of the Pops was expected, but Diamond's regular drummer Simon Kirke resumed his place in the band.
Paresi soon built a reputation for his drum programming work, and working relationships with a number of record producers developed. David Motion secured Paresi's percussive abilities for Love in a World Gone Mad and I Used to Love the Radio, recorded during the sessions for Bucks Fizz's 1986 album Writing on the Wall. He also worked with Motion on One Way, an album by europopglam band Rok-Etz recently augmented by Sal Solo of Classix Nouveaux. That same year the drummer encountered Stephen Street, who mixed a single by A Pair of Blue Eyes, a short-lived CBS band to whom Paresi was assigned.
The Street connection would lead to regular work with Morrissey, immediately following the demise of The Smiths in 1987. Paresi was regular drummer on albums Viva Hate and Kill Uncle as well as the Bona Drag sessions, lasting until the singer songwriter's sharp change of direction into rockabilly in 1992. This period of Paresi's career would later be chronicled in a BBC Radio 4 documentary, I Was Morrissey's Drummer (2005), as well as a number of related articles.
Paresi joined Bleed in 1994, an agitating feminist group famed for their anti-pornography single It Makes Money, for which they sent "faxes to various music and mainstream press publications plus top-shelf sex magazines" highlighting the industry's abuses of women.The Encyclopedia of Popular Music – 4th Edition (Oxford University Press, 2006; editor Colin Larkin), p669. Despite an association with Stephen Street, by then producing Blur, the group struggled to find an audience and split in 1997.
More recent musical activities include drum duties on the 2010 album by Franc Cinelli, who performs under the Good Times, Good Times moniker. The record, also called Good Times, Good Times, was produced by Danton Supple and released on his label, Definition Sounds.
Local radio In parallel to his music career, McGibbon maintained a keen interest in performing comedy and found regular work as a fake caller on Clive Bull's late-night LBC show, beginning in 1986. There, he developed the character of Ned Sherrin soundalike Rodway of Belgravia, a man trapped with his mother and in unrequited love with the girl at his local gardening shop. Shortly before Christmas 1987 he faked the murder of a turkey live on air, provoking several complaints. Another character was Eric the Gardener, a Wiltshireman inclined to speak in gnomic, poetic utterances and non-sequiturs. There was also Vini of Vauxhall (based on musician Vini Reilly) and Ron, an estate dweller constantly having to calm his dogs – Sultan and Khan – during calls to the show. The last of these was a direct influence on a character in BBC Radio 4's phone-in parody Down the Line with Gary Bellamy. Its creators have freely admitted on Front Row that Bull's show was in their minds when making the series, having been regular listeners during the late 1980s.
Self-released singles Shortly after ending his period in the Morrissey band, Andrew McGibbon released two records of his own.
The first was '"Princess" by Blu Gene featuring Spider Johnson, a ragga single which used extracts from the Princess Diana Squidgygate tape as answering phrases in a love song. Annie Nightingale played it heavily but the record was otherwise outlawed by Radio 1, despite the creation of a toned-down radio edit.
This was followed by "I Live in a Giant Mushroom", a novelty trance single by McGibbon disguised as LBC character Eric the Gardener. The record secured daytime play on Steve Wright in the Afternoon on BBC Radio 1, where the presenter predicted it would be a Christmas hit. In the event, it failed to chart. Issued on Mental Temple, McGibbon's own label, it was mixed and produced by Danton Supple who would later produce Coldplay. A song on the Divine Comedy album Fin de Siecle was named in tribute to Eric.
Kevin Greening A significant working relationship was forged between McGibbon and GLR disc jockey Kevin Greening around the time that he moved to Virgin Radio in April 1993. Greening's interest was piqued by the Eric the Gardener record, desperate to know if the character was real or make believe. McGibbon was soon contributing sketch material to the show. Additional characters in these early days included Welworth Moore, David van Donkin, Inspector Steeping of Scotland Yard, Raymond Sinclair and Creighton Wheeler.
Transferring to BBC Radio 1 in January 1994, Greening initially fronted the weekend breakfast show, moving to lunchtimes between November 1994 and October 1995. Fixtures during this period include a regular two-part story from Eric the Gardener and three adverts per show by Raymond Sinclair's insalubrious associates Blo Chap. Musical departures comprised the work of the Sinclair Singers, a satirical four-part jazz harmony group again mixed and produced by Danton Supple, as well as a parody of Morrissey smuggled in during guest host slots for Simon Mayo and known in fan circles as Oh Melanie.
McGibbon was sacked from the show upon the move back to weekend breakfast in October 1995, although he returned to assist during the depleted airtime available in Greening's drive time slot from February – October 1997.
October 1997 saw the partnering of Greening with Zoë Ball for the Radio 1 breakfast show, which lasted just one year. Here, McGibbon debuted Major Holdups, a terrifying former air pilot prone to barking out travel updates intercut with surreal storylines. These items were co-written with Rob Colley. This period also saw the return of Raymond Sinclair in the regular item Ray's Organ.
With a move to Sundays in September 1998, McGibbon was dropped once again from Greening's show. A final edition on 16 January 2000 comprised a nostalgic look back at old sketch material, ending with a swansong appearance by Eric the Gardener.
The Nimmo Twins McGibbon briefly performed as the third member of The Nimmo Twins, a sketch troupe formed in 1996 by Owen Evans and Karl Minns. Augmenting the team from the spring of 1999, their third Edinburgh show premiered in August at the Pleasance and was well received. In a five-star review by the Scotland on Sunday newspaper, it was written thatyou never know where their comedy is coming from. It sneaks up behind you and bites without warning. Whether it's a skit about Chaucer having his prologue, having The Canterbury Tales rejected on account of the spelling mistakes, or a killingly funny analysis of the abysmal acting common to crime reconstructions, The Nimmo Twins hit the comedy bulls eye like Tyson hits his unfortunate opponents. It's anarchic, off-the-wall and eye-poppingly innovative.Scotland on Sunday – 22 August 1999
By the time of their 2000 radio series, McGibbon had left to pursue his own projects.
Creighton Wheeler Creighton Wheeler, a character created by McGibbon during his time with Kevin Greening, has enjoyed the longest life of any of his characters. A sufferer of splicer's disease, words and phrases are skipped as he speaks, thus creating conjunctions made out of fragments from unrelated words. The conceit grew out of the parodies of radio ads featuring Raymond Sinclair on – initially – Greening's Virgin show, where crude tape edits breathlessly cut from one sentence to another, often losing syllabic sounds. McGibbon could eventually mimic this naturally and, with the tilt of a cut-glass accent broadly based on art critic Brian Sewell, a new character emerged.
Wheeler diversified from the Greening show with regular appearances on Loose Ends, on which McGibbon had first met The Nimmo Twins. Live performances followed as part of their Edinburgh show, as did a variation on the character for an episode of Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer's revival of Randall & Hopkirk.
Two series for BBC Radio 4 aired in 2003. Wheeler's Fortune and Wheeler's Wonders were narrated by Brian Hayes and explored the character's Zelig-like presence in cultural history. Jon Snow, Bernard Cribbins, David Frost, Brian Sewell, Ned Sherrin and Michael Winner were amongst his deadpan witnesses. A rave review followed courtesy of Gillian Reynolds of The Daily Telegraph, who claimed it had "made me whoop, yell and fall out of bed laughing." Applauding an arts show parody called 'Art, Art, Art, Art', she continued "We have all heard parodies of television arts shows. We have all experienced arts shows that are beyond parody. This one was both spot on and deliciously off. Hayes linked it with the dignity of Kenneth Horne encountering Julian and Sandy."The Daily Telegraph – 18 February 2003
Early sitcoms Having developed a taste for narrative comedy with the exploits of Tony Meringue on the Kevin Greening show, McGibbon soon wrote a number of half-hour comedies for BBC Radio 4.
Routemasters (1999) was his debut sitcom, telling the tale of a time travelling art thief. It had echoes of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The series starred The Nimmo Twins and LA Law actress Amanda Donohoe. It represented her official radio debut, excluding a number of incognito appearances in various sketches for Greening. Speaking to the Radio Times, she said that "I suppose I'm an intergalactic dominatrix. There are great humorous possibilities – like painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with white emulsion. In the end we discover Hildegard's rather tawdry past and motives."'Show me a good film part for a 35-year-old woman and I'll bang on the door' by Andrew Duncan, Radio Times, 11 – 17 September 1999. The series was written by McGibbon (who also played Raymond) with additional material by Rob Colley and Kevin Greening. Later BBC7 transmissions were cut to remove a subplot about castration.