Matt Roper

Roper made his comedy debut in London during the late-1990s and is noted for his early work in sketch comedy at the Jermyn Street Theatre and in the satirical sketch show Newsrevue at the Canal Café Theatre.

He first gained prominence with his creation of Wilfredo, a grotesque satire of a Mediterranean romantic singer that has divided critics, leading them to proclaim him as "strangely endearing",[1] "utterly charming and uplifting",[2] "unlikeable",[3] "inappropriate"[4] and "a genius creation".[4] The character is notoriously ill-mannered; frequently salivating onstage, drinking and smoking his way throughout songs, while berating his musicians and audience members with insults and expletives.[5][6]

With Wilfredo and his band, Roper toured the British summer festival circuit, counting the Glastonbury Festival[7][8][9] among his successes on several occasions. In July 2010 Wilfredo became the surprise hit of the Port Eliot Festival, appearing onstage with Jarvis Cocker.[10] Roper has presented the character at the Café de Paris, the Tobacco Factory in Bristol, Brighton Komedia and at London's Leicester Square Theatre. He has toured the character to festivals worldwide, giving performances in Australia, Argentina, the Philippines, the United States,[11][12] South Africa,[13] and across Europe.[14][15][16][17][18][19][20]

In June 2011, Wilfredo appeared in the first series of Rufus Hound's What's So Funny? for BBC Radio 7 (now BBC Radio 4 Extra),[21] recorded the Christmas Day edition of The Comedy Club Interviews for the same channel later that year[22] in addition to making an appearance on Arthur Smith's Pissed Up Chat Show at the E4 Udderbelly at the Southbank Centre.

With comedian Pippa Evans under the guise of Loretta Maine, Roper co-wrote and recorded the song 'Happy Goddamn Christmas', released on 1 December 2012, peaking at No. 6 on the iTunes UK Comedy Charts.[23] An accompanying video was released via BBC Three featuring cameos by Arthur Smith, Imran Yusuf, Ruth Bratt and Thom Tuck.[24] Also with Evans, he co-wrote and recorded the single 'Peace All Over The World (At Christmas Time)', released 8 December 2014 and reportedly banned by BBC Radio 2 who were "worried that sensitive listeners would be offended".[25]

Roper played both God and the Devil, in Terry Newman's political satire Lucifer: My Part in the New Labour Project (And How I Invented Coalition Government) in London and for the Brighton Festival in May 2011.[26]

In September 2014, he joined the line-up of the surreal sketch comedy group The Greatest Show on Legs, debuting in Leipzig, Germany.[27]

In November 2014, Roper was among 44 comedians to sign an open letter to Dapper Laughs published nationally in the UK's Independent newspaper, protesting "encouraging rape culture and normalising sexism" in an ITV2 series, which was subsequently cancelled.[38][39] He is a member of the Save Soho movement, a collective of artists who oppose the ongoing closure and demolition of music venues and independent businesses within the London neighbourhood, adding his signature to a letter to Boris Johnson in 2014.[40] Roper is a long-time supporter of the British Labour Party and many of its causes. He is a supporter of the British-based NGO Burma Campaign UK.[41]

Roper lives in Harlem, New York City.[42][37]

He is a son of the late British comedian George Roper.

The American writer Trav S.D., author of No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, describes the generational differences between father and son:

Matt Roper is a chameleon-like comic actor. He is a completely different character every time I ever see him perform. I first met him because he played Chico Marx in a revival of I’ll Say She Is (and amusingly, it was a while before I ever heard his real voice)... In Androboros he played a callous British aristocrat. In Jack and the Beanstalk he was a wide-eyed, accessible little boy. By contrast, George Roper’s only persona was himself. He didn’t act or play roles, apart from brief moments in his jokes when he would do a character. The common denominator of course is show business. People in show business are more like other people in show business than they are like people outside of it, no matter what their act. One can be a lion tamer and the other a tuba player — it’s still a life of constant travel, living from gig to gig, craving attention, and pleasing roomfuls of strangers. I say it is a noble calling. May there be generations of funny Ropers for all eternity.[43]

• Happy Goddamn Christmas - Loretta Maine feat. Matt Roper (single, 2012)
• The Wonderful World of Wilfredo - Wilfredo (album, 2014)
• Peace All Over the World (At Christmas Time) - Wilfredo feat. the Great Carmella (single, 2014)
• Wilfredo Unchained: Live in California - Wilfredo (album, 2015)
• Giraffes on Horseback Salad (Original Soundtrack) – Quin Arbeitman (album, 2019)

• So It Goes – An Interview with Matt Roper So It Goes. John Fleming: 'The indiscreet charm of a slobbering, innocent singer at the Edinburgh Fringe'. Matt Roper Interviewed.
• Matt Roper at the Huffington Post Profile.
• Official Website.