Ashley Blaker

Blaker was educated at the Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, where he was four years behind Sacha Baron Cohen,[1] and a friend of Matt Lucas, with whom he went on to create Little Britain.[3] He is a graduate of both Oxford and Cambridge.[4] He embraced Orthodox Judaism in his early twenties.[3]

Blaker produced and directed Little Britain for BBC Radio 4. From 2012-13, he was producer, as well as co-creator and co-writer (with Matt Lucas) of The Matt Lucas Awards,[5] a BBC TV show in which Blaker appeared on-screen in one episode.

In 2017, he was commissioned by the BBC to create a show called the "Goyish Guide To Judaism", described as "an insider's view of his religion"".[6] It was broadcast in June 2018 as part of BBC Radio Four's Stand-Up Specials series.[7] A follow-up was commissioned and broadcast in 2019.[8]

Blaker's stand-up show, Observant Jew, was part of the 2018 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.[9]

His material has been described by the New York Times as being different from most other Jewish comics': "In contrast to most overtly Jewish comedy, which usually compares Jews and gentiles, most of his material juxtaposes the frum and not frum."[10] The paper's review described him as "a skilled joke-teller with none of the borscht belt timing you would expect from a Catskills comic. And since we rarely hear the perspective of the ultra-Orthodox in comedy clubs, there’s a pleasing freshness about an act that offers a look into a world often hidden from public view."[10]