Eric Rushton

Eric Rushton is an award-winning comedian, writer and actor.

Eric was the recipient of the first ever Channel 4 Sean Lock Award in 2023 and won Leicester Mercury Comedian Of The Year in 2020.

TV credits include ITV2’s The Stand Up Sketch Show and BBC3’s Such Brave Girls.

As well as performing, Eric is a talented writer and has written for The Last Leg, Late Night Lycett and 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown.

This year, Eric went on a sold-out tour with his show, The Real One, after a critically-acclaimed run at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2024. He took his first show with Chambers, Innkeeper, to the Fringe in August, with multiple sold out shows and excellent reviews.

Awards

Nominee: Ish Edinburgh Comedy Award Best Show 2025

Winner: Channel 4 Sean Lock Comedy Award 2023

Finalist: Leicester Comedy Festival Awards Best New Show 2023

Winner: Leicester Mercury Comedian Of The Year 2020

Finalist: Midlands Best Act 2018

Finalist: So You Think You’re Funny 2017

Finalist: Birmingham Breaking Talent Award Finalist 2017

Finalist: Chortle Student Comedian of the Year 2016

Finalist: Midlands Best New Act 2016

Credits

TV

• The Stand Up Sketch Show (Performer, ITV2, 2024)

TV – Acting

• Such Brave Girls (Supermarket Assistant, BBC3, 2025)
• Make That Movie (Non-TX Pilot, 2024)

Writing

• Late Night Lycett (Additional Material, 2024)
• Last Leg (Additional Material, 2023)
• 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown (Writer’s Room, 2023)

Radio & Podcasts

• Always Be Comedy Podcast (Guest, 2025)
• My Time Capsule (Guest, 2024)
• The Monkey Barrel Comedy Chat Show (Guest, 2024)
• On The Mic (Guest, 2024)
• Hot Water’s Green Room Podcast (Guest, 2023)
• Pappy’s Flatshare (Guest, 2023)
• Another One Podcast (Guest, 2022)
• Jokes with Mark Simmons (Guest, 2021)
• The Staff Room Podcast (Guest, 2021)
• The Mrs Barbara Nice & Friends Podcast (Guest, 2020)
• The Brum Radio Comedy Show (Guest, 2020)

Live

• Innkeeper (Edinburgh Fringe, 2025)
• Real One (Edinburgh Fringe & National Tour, 2024-2025)
• Not That Deep (Edinburgh Fringe, 2023)
• I Had A Dream And You Were All In It (Edinburgh Fringe, 2022)

Press

“[He] knocks-off grade-A punchlines with a shrug, basking in a superlative gag rate to conceal the dark heart of his story”
★★★★ The List on Innkeeper

“Rushton’s set is one of the most fluid and meticulously crafted routines you’ll see this Fringe”
★★★★ Ed Fest Mag on Innkeeper

“There’s a dark emotional truth to his tightly written gags and lean, concise anecdotes”
★★★★ Fest Mag on Innkeeper

“With his deadpan delivery and finely wrought gags, he commands the audience and delivers a lot of laughs.”
★★★★ The Arts Desk on Innkeeper

“Deliciously dark, honest humour.”
British Comedy Guide on Innkeeper

“A northern Napoleon Dynamite who is so nerdy he is cool. In his track suit and specs he looks like a lost member of Hot Chip. But when it comes to assured off-the-wall confessional comedy he is very much hot shit.”
★★★★ Beyond The Joke on Innkeeper

“Innkeeper is an excellent hour of comedy. No wonder it sold out. A thinking man’s comedian with a gift for subverting standard tropes hilariously”
★★★★⯪ One4Review on Innkeeper

“Every generation needs joke writers like him – it’s one of the rarest and most precious disciplines to be able to work creatively within the one-liner format while still threading them into a coherent narrative.”
★★★★ Chortle on Real One

“While his persona is distinctly low status and self-deprecating he has deceptively impressive control over his audience.”
★★★★ Beyond The Joke on Real One

“A comedic brain which knows exactly which buttons to press and when.”
★★★★ The Skinny on Real One

“There’s far more invention and daring originality in Eric Rushton’s best routines than many of his more celebrated and high-profile peers approach in an hour…framed by his bespectacled, everyman appearance, working-class horizons and near-deadpan delivery, cracked with an endearing grin whenever a bit truly lands, he’s a veritable poet, reconstituting the mundane and commonplace with some truly audacious flights of fantasy.”
★★★★ Fest Mag on Not That Deep

“A master craftsman, with an arsenal of great one-liners and a particular skill with a pullback and reveal gag”
★★★★ The Scotsman on I Had A Dream And You Were All In It