Ben Miller

Bennet Miller

Born in London, Ben was given the unfamiliar first name Bennet by his parents. After growing up in Nantwich, Cheshire; Ben went on to study Natural Sciences at St. Catharine’s College in Cambridge, staying on afterwards to study a PhD in Quantum Physics.

Science Or Comedy

Half way through a PhD in Physics at Cambridge University, Ben Miller met Alexander Armstrong. Instead of finishing his PhD, they chose to scrap science for comedy; and started playing at ‘The Comedy Club Footlights’ in Cambridge.They performed at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1994, to great success. The two have gone on to establish themselves as one of the country’s most popular sketch duos.

After four years of touring pubs and underground comedy clubs, the pair appeared on Saturday Night Live as Euro Rock duo Strijka. In 1996 the duo were nominated for the Perrier Award, and were given their first TV series ‘Armstrong and Miller’; running for a total of four series from 1997 to 2001. Ben appears in regular panel shows, where he shows off his general knowledge and exceptional grasp of science.

Ben Miller: Monkey Business

Besides the writing and performing partnership, Ben Miller also acted in a range of comic and dramatic roles; stretching from Casualty to Johnny English, Doc Martin to Moving Wallpaper. More recently he has established his acting credentials in popular series ‘Death in Paradise’ and ‘Primeval’. Ben has also played the Sheriff of Nottingham in Doctor Who, a Liberal Democrat candidate in Ballot Monkeys and perhaps most improbably, the voice of Johnny Vegas’ sidekick Monkey.

In 2011 he went back to his academic roots, by presenting Horizon’s ‘What Is One Degree?’. Yet more science beckoned in 2016 when Ben presented the ITV series It’s Not Rocket Science; besides Rachel Riley and Romesh Ranganathan.

In February 2016 Ben published his first book entitled ‘The Aliens are Coming!’, examining the question “are we alone in the universe?”. The book takes a fantastic voyage of discovery, from the beginnings of life on earth, to the very latest search for alien intelligence.