Born and raised in Hampshire, Hardy studied at the University of Southampton and began his stand-up career in the 1980s, going on to win the Perrier Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1988.

[4] Hardy started scriptwriting before turning to stand-up comedy in London in the early 1980s,[4] funded in part by the Enterprise Allowance Scheme.

[4] He went on to feature in various comedy shows including Blackadder Goes Forth (1989), and presented a television documentary about the political background to the English Civil War as well as an edition of Top of the Pops in 1996.

[4] Kit Hollerbach featured alongside him in the BBC radio sitcoms Unnatural Acts and At Home with the Hardys.

[17] His comedy embodied his radical politics, including outspoken opposition to former Labour leader Tony Blair[18] – he was conflicted during the Blair and Gordon Brown leadership period, quoted as saying "To me, voting Labour is like wiping your bottom: I can't say I like doing it but you've got to – because you're in a worse mess if you don't.

[8] He also supported the campaign to free Danny McNamee, whose conviction for involvement in the Provisional Irish Republican Army's (IRA) Hyde Park bombing on 20 July 1982 was quashed in 1999, after several years of prison.

"[24] This sparked complaints and caused Burnley Borough Council to cancel a show in the town over fears that it could be "disruptive" in an area with a recent history of racial tension.

[2][27] Julia McKenzie, the head of Radio team at BBC Studios, said of Hardy "I will remember him as someone who could convulse an audience with laughter at a comic image whilst at the same time making a point of substance that reverberated on a much deeper level and spoke to his principles and unflinching concern for the less fortunate.