Robert Webb

1972-09-29 · Lincolnshire, England, UK

Robert Patrick Webb (born 29 September 1972) is an English comedian, actor and writer. He rose to prominence alongside David Mitchell as the comedy duo Mitchell and Webb. Mitchell and Webb starred in the Channel 4 sitcom Peep Show, in which Webb plays Jeremy "Jez" Usbourne. The two also starred in the sketch show That Mitchell and Webb Look, for which they then performed a stage adaptation, The Two Faces of Mitchell and Webb. The duo starred in the 2007 film Magicians, and in the short-lived series Ambassadors in 2013. Webb headed the critically acclaimed sitcom The Smoking Room and was a performer in the sketch show Bruiser. From 2017 to 2021, he starred alongside Mitchell in the Channel 4 comedy-drama Back. Webb is also a regular comedy panellist, appearing on shows such as The Bubble, Have I Got News for You, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, QI, Mastermind, Argumental, and Was It Something I Said? He has also hosted and narrated several programmes. His other sitcom appearances include Blessed, The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff, and Fresh Meat. Robert Patrick Webb was born on 29 September 1972 in Boston, Lincolnshire, and grew up in Woodhall Spa. His parents divorced when he was five years old, with his mother remarrying a year or so later. He has two older brothers and a younger half-sister. He grew up on a council estate, and was educated at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School in Horncastle. Having grown up watching the sitcoms The Young Ones, Blackadder, and Only Fools and Horses, he became interested in drama and poetry while in school, and began writing parodies. At the age of 13, partly because of resentment towards his father, he made a conscious effort to lose his native Lincolnshire accent and now speaks with a more neutral English accent. When he was 17 and in the lower sixth form preparing for his A-levels, his mother died of breast cancer, and he moved in with his father and re-sat his A-levels. In 1992, Webb attended Robinson College, Cambridge, where he studied English and became vice-president of the Footlights, where he met David Mitchell. The two met at an audition for a Footlights production of Cinderella in 1993.