James Roderick Moir (born 24 January 1959), commonly known by his stage name Vic Reeves, is an English comedian and artist.
Moir formed the Fashionable Five, a group of five friends (including Jack Dent, who ran the original Fan Club) who would follow bands like the Enid and Free onto stage, and perform pranks (including Moir pretending to have a brass hand, and following a Terry Scott lookalike around Darlington town centre in single-file formation).
Before finding fame with his comedy, Moir was a member of several bands with many different names and musical styles, in which he usually played lead guitar and/or sang.
[5][6] Mark Lamarr, later to become a team captain on Shooting Stars, was sent a tape of Moir's band Fan Tan Tiddly Span.
[7] When Moir appeared, as Vic Reeves, on Never Mind the Buzzcocks in 1998,[8] Lamarr repeatedly played a sample from the song "Fantasia (Side A)"[9] in an attempt to embarrass him.
It was about this time that Reeves and Bob Mortimer rented a back room at Jools Holland's office/recording studio in Westcombe Park, Greenwich where they would spend hours writing material.
A 1994 pilot written by Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson entitled The Honeymoon's Over was due to feature Chris Bell, a character from The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer; however, the series was never commissioned.
Between August 1998 and May 1999, Reeves and Mortimer presented the Channel X produced BBC Saturday game show Families at War with Alice Beer.
In 2000, Moir presented a series entitled Vic Reeves Examines on UK Play, featuring celebrities such as Ricky Gervais, Johnny Vegas, Lauren Laverne and Emma Kennedy discussing a topic of their choice.
He appeared as a celebrity guest alongside his wife Nancy Sorrell on Living TV's Most Haunted in 2003, investigating famous Belgrave Hall with the crew.
In September 2005, Moir hosted a show for Virgin Radio called Vic Reeves Big Night In produced by Mark Augustyn, for a short period on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 7.00pm.
Moir presented a historical ten-part series, entitled Rogues Gallery, which was shown on the Discovery Channel (UK) in 2005, where he investigated, and portrayed Anne Bonny and Mary Read, Captain Kidd, Claude Duval, Jonathan Wild, Rob Roy, Colonel Blood, George Ransley, Deacon Brodie, Blackbeard and Dick Turpin.
In May 2006, Moir presented a programme on ITV Tyne Tees about Northeast comedy culture called It's Funny Up North with... Vic Reeves.
On 17 November 2007, Moir appeared in a weekly sketch show on BBC Radio 2, entitled Vic Reeves' House Arrest.
Mortimer plays his housecall-making hairdresser, Carl, while other performers include The Mighty Boosh star Noel Fielding as a local vagrant who comes to Reeves' door on a weekly basis looking for work, as well as Nancy Sorrell in multiple roles.
In February 2009, Moir appeared as presenter of the first episode of My Brilliant Britain, one of the new television shows commissioned for UKTV People channel's relaunch as Blighty.
Series 6 of Shooting Stars began airing on 26 August 2009 with Reeves and Mortimer, along with Ulrika Jonsson and Jack Dee as team captains.
[17] In 2020, Moir co-hosted the Netflix original, reality series The Big Flower Fight alongside Natasia Demetriou.
He has done solo advertising work for a variety of products including Guinness, MFI, Müller Light, First Direct, Mars Bar, Fanta, Heinz Tomato Ketchup, Domestos bleach, Maryland Cookies, 888 Ladies and East Coast Trains.
Along with "Dizzy", two other singles were released from the album, a cover of the Matt Monro song "Born Free" and a dance reworking of the Christian hymn "Abide with Me" which reached No.
[25] Moir had a history with the track, having both sung it at the beginning of early Big Night Out performances in London, and opened the Channel 4 series with it.
[26][28] On the CD release of the single, a studio version of "At This Stage I Couldn't Say" is included, a track originally sung by characters Mulligan and O'Hare in The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer.
[32] In 1990, both Reeves and Mortimer contributed backing vocals to Jools Holland's "Holy Cow" (a Lee Dorsey cover).
[36] In 1992, Moir contributed a track to Ruby Trax, a compilation album released by NME magazine to commemorate 40 years of the publication.
[39] In 1998, Moir contributed to Twentieth-Century Blues: The Songs of Noël Coward, a tribute album featuring notable singers and bands such as Elton John, Sting, Robbie Williams and Paul McCartney.
Moir covered Coward's 1934 track "Don't Put Your Daughter on the Stage Mrs. Worthington", which was arranged by David Arnold for the album.
The song, described by Moir as "sinister",[40] was initially recorded with all original verses intact, but as the last included foul language, it was edited out of the final release.
As seen in the script book for the show, Moir often drew sketches for the BBC's costume and set designers saying that "if we just tell them what we want, it never ends up looking like it does in our minds".
His mother and father, a seamstress and typesetter by trade, made extra money by selling handmade wooden crafts and ceramics at local markets.
[56] Building on these money-making schemes, Moir began charging for his own artistic services such as customising and painting his school friend's Haversack bags[57] and elaborately embroidering clothing.