He wrote and performed for a range of American networks, in series such as Fridays, Not Necessarily the News (popularising the "sniglet" neologism), and Saturday Night Live.

[2] After winning a Perrier Comedy Award in 2000, using the character of Tennesseean country musician Otis Lee Crenshaw, Hall became popular in the United Kingdom, regularly appearing on QI and similar panel shows.

After the end of Fridays, Hall co-wrote and starred in the satirical comedy series Not Necessarily the News from 1983 until 1990 where he coined the term "sniglet" to describe newly created words and collected and published several volumes of books of them.

His appearances achieved some cult status due to his line of jokes on Live at the Apollo about Tom Cruise and the perceivable similarities between many of his roles.

He also appeared on the BBC Two programme Top Gear, where he successfully managed to make a song about a Rover 25 car, much to the enjoyment of host Jeremy Clarkson and the audience.

In 2009, he performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in two shows, his solo stand up and also with longtime collaborator Mike Wilmot and Montana-based actor Tim Williams in a new play entitled Campfire Stories.

He has also performed at the West Belfast Festival/Feile an Phobail, one of the largest community festivals in Ireland, to a sell-out audience where he received widespread critical acclaim.

From 2015 onwards, Hall has lent his voice as Captain Taylor in the ITV series Thunderbirds Are Go, with the character first appearing in the episode "Relic".

In 2000, he won the Perrier Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe, under the guise of his own grizzled uncle, Otis Lee Crenshaw, the much-convicted country music singer.

He subsequently toured a version of this show throughout the UK and Ireland in 2009, with longtime sidekick Myron T. Buttram (guitarist and pedal steel player, Rob Childs) and Lonesome Dave (banjoist and guitarist, David Lindsay) appearing at the 2009 Adelaide Fringe festival, the Sydney Opera House, and the 2009 Melbourne Comedy festival.

The band was originally credited as The Black Liars and was renamed The Honky Tonk A**holes when joined by Horst Furst II (bassist Nigel Portman Smith) and drummer Mark Hewitt.