Biography

Andy Riley is an Emmy-winning scriptwriter, cartoonist and children's author. He has created a series of best-selling cartoon books including The Book of Bunny Suicides and Wine Makes Mummy Clever and Beer Makes Daddy Strong, and his King Flashypants children's books are aimed at 5-8 year-olds.

He drew a weekly strip cartoon for The Observer Magazine called Roasted, which is also collected in hardback edition. So far his books have sold around one and a half million copies and have been published in eighteen countries, producing calendar, greetings card and poster spin-offs.

His comedy scriptwriting is done in partnership with Kevin Cecil. They won Emmys in 2015 for their work on the acclaimed HBO series Veep. They have won two BAFTAS, for the sitcom Black Books in 2005 and the animated special Robbie The Reindeer in 2000.

They created and wrote the sitcoms The Great Outdoors and Hyperdrive for the BBC, and Slacker Cats for the ABC Family Channel. Other television writing credits include Gangsta Granny, The Boy In The Dress, Tracey Ullman's Show, Little Britain, The Armando Iannucci Shows, Tracey Breaks The News, The Friday Night Armistice, Come Fly With Me, Trigger Happy TV, So Graham Norton, Smack The Pony, The Armstrong And Miller Show, Spitting Image, Harry & Paul, Alexei Sayle's Merry Go Round, Big Bad World, Man Stroke Woman, Walliams & Friend and Big Train. Their Radio 4 panel game, The 99p Challenge, won a Sony silver award.

As well as writing comedy, they are experienced writers of feature-length animation: their credits include Gnomeo And Juliet (released 2011) and The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists (released 2012). They did an uncredited rewrite of Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride.

Andy is an experienced public speaker, and often appears at book festivals and schools to talk about King Flashypants and draws cartoons live. He occasionally appears on podcasts, such as Iszi Lawrence's Z List Dead List.

Andy is originally from Aylesbury but now lives in London. He used to be the stage dancer for The Pod, Julian Barratt's comedy techno band which was the forerunner of The Mighty Boosh.

Despite rival claims on the internet, Andy Riley is the true originator of the tradition of cross-dressing at the Towersey folk festival.