[2][3][4][5] In 2017 he founded the independent television production company Various Artists Ltd (VAL), along with co-directors Jesse Armstrong, Sam Bain and Roberto Troni.
He worked briefly as a sub-editor at Professional Electrician magazine, then as a PR at Heathrow Airport and the National Army Museum in London, before going full-time as a stand-up on the alternative comedy circuit of the 1980s.
In 1992 he joined BBC Radio's Light Entertainment department as a trainee producer, producing the improvised comedy drama The Masterson Inheritance, starring Josie Lawrence and Paul Merton, the sketch and stand-up show The Mark Steel Solution, the comedy lecture series The Mark Steel Revolution, and the Doctor Who radio series The Paradise of Death.
In 1995, after BBC Radio 4 did not air Eamon, Older Brother of Jesus,[8] a series Clarke had produced with the comedian Michael Redmond, Clarke left radio and moved to BBC Television, producing shows with Paul Merton and Bob Monkhouse, as well as the new-talent sketch show Comedy Nation, before leaving in 1998 to go freelance.
[9] In 2003 Peter Fincham allowed Clarke to take time off from Talkback to produce the first series of Peep Show for Objective Productions, starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb, and written by Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong.
In 2012 Clarke left Objective to become Channel 4's head of comedy, where the shows he commissioned included The Windsors, Toast of London, Man Down, Raised by Wolves, Flowers, Catastrophe and Chewing Gum, the latter two both winning BAFTA awards in 2016.