Welsh impressionist · mimic · comedian
Rick Shaw (stage name) is a hugely talented stand-up comedian, mimic and comedic imitator who first burst onto the comedy scene in the 1980s and 1990s, winning Welsh Impressionist of the Year and appearing with Russell Grant and Anne Aston (The Golden Shot / Bob Monkhouse) on the television programme All Kinds of Everything.
Rick was also one of Fagin’s boys in Lionel Bart’s Oliver Twist and in the 1980s was the manic front man for Wales’ top comedy showband. Their two-hour show was a mainstay for entertaining British officers and their partners at Christmas, celebrating annual regiments’ dinner dances in Germany.
Rick is still a prolific comedy writer. In the late 1990s he penned a plethora of comedy material and sketches. A different career took him out of the entertainment industry for a time, and many alter-ego characters — Fame Edin-Bra Beverage (Dame Edna Everage), Wax Moyst (Sir Max Boyce), Commy Trooper (Tommy Cooper), Spruce Forsight (Sir Bruce Forsyth), Cilly Bonnelly (Sir Billy Connolly) and more — were retired a couple of years into the new millennium.
But there’s life in the old dog yet. Over recent years he has retired early to hone his comedy writing and performing skills once more. In 2023 his hour-long show Rick Shaw & Friends was offered a twenty-four-night comeback tour with promoters Just the Tonic at the Edinburgh Fringe. He became very unwell during that period and, though slowly recovering, decided not to take the festival — mainly for health reasons and the high costs of bringing a show to Edinburgh. It remains on his bucket list.
