Paul Whitehouse is a British comic actor and
writer.
Between the late 80s and the late 90s Whitehouse was the principal writing and performing partner with Harry Enfield, usually writing with Charlie Higson as well. Whitehouse's distinctive looks made him perfect for Lance the generic stupid foil for Enfield's more abrasive characters (although Lance also had his hidden talents - witness the scene in which Whitehouse, a classically trained singer, has Lance reel off the 'Figaro' aria from the Barber Of Seville ), and he co-wrote the vast majority of Enfield's sketches, as well as the book Wad And Peeps.
While continuing to write for Enfield, Whitehouse and Higson took some of the sketches that Enfield had rejected and, along with a revolving team including John Thompson, Arabella Weir and Mark WIlliams, created The Fast Show, possibly the most innovative British comedy show of the 90s.
Whitehouse played, among many other characters, 'Brilliant!', 'Ted' and Ron Manager, and was executive producer of the show.
After the Fast Show finished (just in time - it was just starting to get stale), Whitehouse appeared with Higson in a Ralph And Ted special (featuring the best running characters from the show), made a guest appearance on Higson's Reeves And Mortimer-starring revival of Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased) and became a regular on a terrible 'comedy' quiz on Sky One, Jumpers For Goalposts, again playing Ron Manager (he also co-writes a football column for The Observer as Ron Manager).
However his best recent work has been writing and starring in Happiness, a wonderful sitcom which managesto be funny while at the same time having real emotional depth. It is to be hoped he does more work like this and less of the Fast Show cash ins in the future.