Andrew Doyle (comedian)

Doyle is from an Irish Catholic background, and was born in Derry, Northern Ireland.[9][10] He holds degrees in English and a doctorate in early Renaissance poetry from the University of Oxford, having studied at Wadham College, Oxford.[11]

He regularly writes for Spiked and runs Comedy Unleashed. Doyle has performed his stand-up shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, four of which have also been performed at the Soho Theatre, London. He has appeared on Sky News as a commentator, and as a panel-member on The Moral Maze on BBC Radio 4. He has been a speaker at the Battle of Ideas Festival in London, an annual event hosted by the Institute of Ideas.[12]

He is also a visiting research fellow at Queen's University, Belfast. Doyle originally worked as a teacher, including alongside Simon Warr at Royal Hospital School.[13]

He created the fictional character of Titania McGrath in April 2018 through the creation of an anonymous Twitter account for the character. The twitter account is a parody Twitter account that was, according to Doyle, designed to mock contemporary "woke culture", as "the majority of people are desperate for this culture to be mocked".[14] McGrath's Twitter account has been suspended for alleged hate speech four times, notably on 9 December 2018,[1][15] only for it to gain 20,000 followers after it was reinstated a day later.[16] As of 22 May 2020, her account has more than 500,000 followers.[17] Doyle has written two books under the guise of the character. The first was Woke: A Guide to Social Justice published 7 March 2019[18] and a children's book, My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism published September 2020.[19] In March 2019, Doyle was contacted by Rosamund Urwin, a journalist at The Sunday Times, who asked whether he was the person behind McGrath's Twitter account, due to the inclusion of several sources in McGrath's book that he had quoted previously. Though he denied it, he later revealed himself as the man behind the account.[20]

Doyle's political views have been described as left-wing. He considers himself to be left-wing but is critical of elements of left-wing politics, in particular political correctness and identity politics. He is a Brexit supporter, a fact that cost him a lot of friends.[21][22] Doyle supported Jeremy Corbyn during the 2017 United Kingdom general election.[23]

Doyle is gay.[24] His uncle is political activist Eamonn Melaugh.[25]

• Borderland
• Jimmy Murphy Makes Amends (BBC Radio 4)
• The Second Mr Bailey (BBC Radio 4)
• Reacher's Point (BBC Radio 4)

Doyle is the co-author with Tom Walker of Jonathan Pie: Off The Record (2017).[26] He is also the author of Titania McGrath’s Woke: A Guide to Social Justice (2019). It was positively received by a large number of celebrities such as Ricky Gervais, as well as numerous right-leaning commentators. However it was negatively reviewed by The Guardian which said that Doyle was making a cheap shot by poking fun at identity politics.[27][28] McGrath's first children's book, My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism (2020), was published by Little, Brown in September 2020.[29][30][31][32]

• Jonathan Pie: Off The Record (2017)
• Titania McGrath’s Woke: A Guide to Social Justice (2019)
• Titania McGrath's: My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism (2020)
• Free Speech: Why It Matters (2021)