Alison Spittle, who has created a storm of success in the worlds of stand-up comedy, TV, radio and writing, is one of the funniest women in Ireland.
Irish comedian Alison Spittle will appear on the line-up for this Friday's Late Late Show, which is set to feature Love Islander Maura Higgins, TV personality Kerry Katona, plus 90s boy band Five.
This weekend's instalment will also be a Valentine's Day 'special', with over 200 singletons in the audience 'looking to find love', according to RTÉ.
Spittle has become one of Ireland's young leading female comedy voices.
Who is Alison Spittle?
Alison was born in Harrow, London but you wouldn't know it from her accent.
The 33-year-old wears many hats and is a talented comedy writer, radio producer, podcaster and actress, not to mention one of the best stand-ups in the country.
Her father was a builder and the family moved frequently, including to Dresden, Germany before moving to Spittle's mother's ancestral home of County Westmeath, Tyrrellspass, Mullingar and finally Ballymore at age 8.
Spittle attended secondary school in Moate, Co Westmeath and university in Dublin.
She studied media at Ballyfermot College and subsequently got a placement with iRadio.
Career to date
After college, Spittle moved back to Westmeath where she worked as a researcher for iRadio with comedian Bernard O'Shea.
Speaking on her beginnings in comedy, Alison told VoiceMag UK: "So I worked for a radio DJ who does stand-up comedy, Bernard O'Shea. He told me to try stand-up and I did. The adrenalin and love I had for stand-up will never be matched, and that's why I don’t want children in case I don't feel what I felt walking off stage for the first time."
She has worked for iRadio, RTÉ Radio 1 and Newstalk and created sketches for Republic of Telly, and also wrote and starred in her RTÉ Two sitcom Nowhere Fast.
She is the host and creator of the Alison Spittle Show podcast, which is hosted by headstuff.org.
She began working in comedy as an opening act supporting PJ Gallagher.
Spittle said if she wasn’t a comedian she would work in radio and if that wasn't an option, in sales for a vending machine company.
Her first play Starlet premiered to great acclaim, garnering five stars from The Sunday Times.
She told VoiceMag: "I would be working as a producer, hopefully, in radio. Or maybe I would have had a grand realisation and work in sales for a vending machine company and get a drinking problem."
Her comedy shows have included Alison Spittle Needs an Agent, Alison Spittle Discovers Hawaii (2015), and Worrier Princess (2017).
Alison’s stand-up shows have enjoyed several sold-out runs at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Dublin Fringe Festival, Glasgow Comedy Festival and Machynlleth among others, while she has performed at Forbidden Fruit and Cork comedy festivals.
Spittle wrote and starred in web comedy shorts for RTÉ Two, and in sketches for Republic of Telly with Kevin McGahern.
She was a regular contributor to The Right Hook with George Hook on Newstalk and often features on The Guilty Feminist podcast with Deborah Francis-White.
Spittle appeared in the 2019 comedy film Extra Ordinary.
During lockdown Alison created and ran #covideoparty, an online film watchalong club that trended on Twitter for months, while she also took to Instagram Live for fake masses and presented a national radio show called Will You Shift My Friend? on Today FM.
In 2020, she and fellow comedian Fern Brady started a podcast for the BBC called Wheel of Misfortune.
Brady left the podcast in early 2021 and Spittle hosted the show with guests until Kerry Katona became permanent co-host in November 2022.
Nowhere Fast
In 2017, she co-wrote six-part sitcom Nowhere Fast with her boyfriend Simon Mullholland.
The series was directed by Simon Gibney.
The RTÉ2 sitcom centres around life in the midlands for a generation of 20-somethings.
The show sees Angela (played by Spittle) moving back down to Ballybeag in the midlands, having lost her job on a radio show in Dublin following a high-profile libel case.
The series began in November 2017, and was generally well-received by critics and viewers.
Two armed break-ins in her Dublin home
Spittle endured two armed break-ins at her Dublin home in the space of a month, first by a man with a knife and then by two men wielding crowbars.
In a 2017 interview with the Irish Examiner, Spittle was thinking about the thefts' comedic potential.
She told The Irish Examiner: "The only way I had to process it was to remember the funny things about it.
"I was just telling myself that if I did a show about it, it wouldn’t be a wasted experience.
"When the first lad robbed me, he was shouting at me for car keys, so I just started telling him about all the times I tried to learn to drive and couldn’t. It was a ridiculous way to try to be normal in an abnormal situation."
Alison has also been a winner of the Irish Tatler woman of the year award for comedy, U magazine 30 under 30 award, and nominated for The Irish Times' TV show of the year.
The Late Late Show Valentine's Day special airs on RTÉ One this Friday, 10 February at 9.35pm.
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