Jon Richardson is a Lancaster-born, Swindon-based British comedian who attended Lancaster Royal Grammar School. He co-hosted a Sunday morning radio show on BBC 6 Music with fellow comedian and friend Russell Howard, and continued to present the show himself after Howard left, until 7 March 2010. He was nominated for Best Newcomer at the 2007 if.comedy awards for his first full-length solo show 'Spatula Pad' which he performed at the Pleasance Courtyard. He won the award for Best Breakthrough Act at the 2008 Chortle Awards, and was nominated for the main Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2009 for 'This Guy At Night'.
Richardson started out in comedy after dropping out of Hispanic Studies at Bristol University. After a year working as a chef, he realised that he wanted to do stand-up, and entered and won his heat of the BBC New Talent Comedy Search in May 2003.
He reached the semi-finals of the Laughing Horse New Act of The Year competition in 2004. Quickly developing throughout 2004, he was one of six acts to reach the final of the J20 Last Laugh Comedy Search. Having impressed a sell-out crowd in Bristol he marked the end of his first year in comedy with a performance at the Criterion Theatre in London's West End. Judges Jasper Carrott and Dave Spikey were both "extremely impressed" with Richardson's performance.
