Paul Tonkinson
English television and radio personality
Paul Tonkinson (born 1 August 1969) is a British comedian, radio presenter and television personality, best known for his presenting work on The Big Breakfast and The Sunday Show.
He was winner of the 1992 Time Out New Act of the Year Award and was Time Out Stand Up Comic of the Year in 1997.
Early life
Tonkinsom is a former pupil of Scalby School and Northallerton School.
Career
Comedy
Tonkinson has been a regular on the UK comedy circuit for over twenty years, playing both public gigs and corporate events, and regularly taking shows to the Edinburgh Festival. In 2003 he performed at Balham's Banana Cabaret, alongside Michael McIntyre and Geoff Norcott.
Tonkinson is also regularly booked by the UK Armed Forces, and was the first comic to perform in Iraq after the war officially ended. He has won two Time Out Comedy Awards.
Tonkinson went on tour with McIntyre in 2015, for his Happy & Glorious show, as well as his Jet-Lagged and Jolly tour in 2023.
Television
Tonkinson's BBC television credits include: Stand Up for the Homeless, The Stand Up Show, The Sunday Show, Comic Relief does Fame Academy, EastEnders Revealed, Liquid News, Good Evening Rockall and Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow.
For Channel 4, Tonkinson has appeared in The Big Breakfast, Take the Mike, Pop Gun, Top Ten and Dicing With Debt.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7154041. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1969, 1992, 1997 and 2003.
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This entry incorporates text from “Paul Tonkinson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.