Paddy McGuinness

Paddy McGuinness first rose to prominence as one half of Max and Paddy, the incompetent doormen from Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights. He’s gone on to be one of the biggest entertainment presenters in the country, hosting the hit ITV dating show Take Me Out, and Top Gear.

Paddy’s first TV outing was in a one-off Channel 4 comedy episode The Services, written by and starring Peter Kay. He returned with Peter soon after with to appear as Paddy the doorman an episode of That Peter Kay Thing entitled The Club, which led to the hugely popular spin-off series, Phoenix Nights. Not taking acting or comedy too seriously, Patrick returned to his job as a fitness instructor. It was only when Peter persuaded him to leave his job and give showbiz a go that Paddy left the gym behind and started work on the second series of Phoenix Nights. The popularity of the two doormen saw them take a countrywide road trip in Max and Paddy: The Road To Nowhere, a series co-written by Peter and Paddy.

From there Paddy also took to the live stage with a number of standup tours, as well as more TV work, hosting on Sky and standing in for Paul O'Grady on his ITV chatshow. Since then he’s become a regular and popular fixture with guest appearances on chat and panel shows, and as well as a brief role in Coronation Street, he hosted the ITV cult hit Take Me Out. Amongst his panel show appearances he became a frequent guest on ITV2’s Celebrity Juice, which in turn spawned a second comedy partnership, this time with Leigh Francis, better known as Keith Lemon, and the pair produced film parody series The Keith and Paddy Picture Show. In arguably his biggest role to date, Paddy also co-hosts the BBC’s global hit Top Gear.

Paddy released his autobiography, My Lifey, as well as an emotive and educational documentary, Paddy and Christine McGuinness: Our Family And Autism on BBC1.