Hamish Blake Australian Comedian and Actor From Melbourne

Hamish Blake is an Australian comedian, television and radio presenter, actor and author, born on 11 December 1981 in Melbourne. Since 2003 he has worked with Andy Lee as the comedy duo Hamish and Andy, and he has also hosted television programmes as a solo presenter. He has won the Gold Logie Award twice.

Early life

Blake grew up in the Melbourne suburb of Glen Waverley. He attended Glen Waverley South Primary School and later Caulfield Grammar School and St Leonard's College, finishing school in 1999. In the late 1980s he was a member of the National Boys Choir of Australia. As a child he liked British comedy such as Monty Python, Fawlty Towers and Blackadder, and as a teenager he admired the comedians Tony Martin and Mick Molloy.

After a gap year he enrolled at the University of Melbourne in a double degree in science and commerce. A few weeks into the first semester he met Andy Lee, and he eventually left university to pursue comedy with him. His first experience of performing comedy came in a university competition, in which his stand-up routine placed third and qualified him for a statewide universities final that he went on to win.

Career

Blake and Lee first performed together at the 2003 Melbourne International Comedy Festival with a stage show about a trip to North Queensland in Blake's old car. They then trained at SYN Radio, where they gained a drive-time shift, and made Radio Karate for RMITV on the community station Channel 31. Radio Karate won an Antenna Award for best comedy program at the inaugural National Community Television Awards in February 2004, and the Seven Network then offered the pair a national show. The Hamish and Andy Show premiered in March 2005 but was cancelled after two weeks because of low ratings. The duo then made a short mockumentary, The Greystone 2800, which won the Melbourne Comedy Festival short film competition and brought them to the attention of Rove McManus. This led to small spots on Rove Live and to the mock current affairs series Real Stories on Network Ten in 2006, which Blake and Lee wrote, acted in, directed, filmed and produced.

In 2006 they began the national drive-time radio programme Hamish & Andy on the Today Network. By the end of that year it had almost one million listeners in Melbourne, and by August 2008 it rated first in four of Australia's five major capital cities. By 2009 it was broadcast in all capital cities and many regional centres. The pair also made guest appearances on Neighbours and on Ten's Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? in 2008. Their television series Hamish and Andy's Gap Year won a Logie Award in April 2012. During filming a stunt entered Blake in a bodybuilding competition, and he was awarded the title of Mr. New York State 2011 in the heavyweight division because he was the only contestant over the weight minimum.

As a solo performer Blake appeared on Spicks and Specks, Thank God You're Here, Twentysomething, The Panel, Rove and other programmes, and he took part in the televised Great Debate at the 2008 Melbourne International Comedy Festival. He wrote columns for Cosmopolitan and the Herald Sun. He co-wrote the dating book Textbook Romance with his wife, Zoë Foster Blake, and he co-starred with Bret McKenzie in his first feature film, Two Little Boys, shot in New Zealand. He is also a founding member of the band Coolboys and the Frontman with Andy Lee and Jack Post.

In 2019 he was announced as host of the Nine Network reality series Lego Masters Australia, working with the judge Ryan McNaught, and in 2021 he hosted the spin-off Lego Masters Bricksmas Specials. In October 2022 he launched the podcast How Other Dads Dad with Hamish Blake. He is set to present the Stan Original series Unskilled Adult, due to premiere on 1 November 2026.

Recognition

Blake has won the Gold Logie Award for Most Popular Personality on Australian Television twice: in 2012 for Hamish and Andy's Gap Year, and in 2022 for Lego Masters Australia. In 2022 he also received the TV Week Bert Newton Award for most outstanding presenter. In the 2024 King's Birthday Honours he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for service to the arts as an entertainer and to the community.

Personal life

Blake married the author Zoë Foster Blake in 2012.