Danny Robins

Danny is a bit of a travel-holic, so working for Travel Channel suits him pretty well. The strangest place he’s found himself recently was at a football tournament full of priests at the Vatican! Thanks to his Scandinavian girlfriend, Danny is learning Swedish and will be found at Midsummer dancing around a pole and singing songs and eating pickled herring.

Danny’s most fun experiences on ESSENTIAL… so far have both involved riding animals – a horse in Utah and a camel in Egypt. Next up, he wants to ride a goat or maybe a swan. The Utah programme allowed him to achieve his dream of becoming a cowboy – he even got to keep the hat!

Over the last few years, in the line of duty, Danny has hung out with gun enthusiasts in Iowa, gone ghost-hunting in the Cotswolds, spotted UFOs in Scotland, come second in the UK Air Guitar Championship Final (he was cheated), learnt to be a cowboy, had a Gothic makeover, entered a rap battle, been trained as a spy and, amazingly, achieved a Number 11 chart hit without even realising – when a DJ sampled one of his comedy sketches for a dance track without telling him! He is now about thirty quid richer in royalties.

Danny started out doing stand up in pubs in Newcastle aged 16 and still performs live today – he can be seen at the Edinburgh Festival most years. He’s appeared on various TV shows including BBC2’s The Culture Show and BBC 3’s Mischief and is a regular contributor to Radio 4 for whom he recently made his own series Danny Robins Music Therapy, where he found himself performing a rap to cheer up traffic wardens and being an in-store DJ for a fishmonger.

He started writing comedy for TV and Radio after university and his big break was making the series We Are History for BBC 2. Since then, his writing career has seen him coming up with gags for such icons as Ronnie Barker, Sir David Frost and even Basil Brush.

Danny’s hobby is volleyball – so his ideal trip would involve a beach, a net and a ball. Possibly in Hawaii (hint hint!)