Simon Bird

Simon Antony Bird (born 19 August 1984) is an English actor and comedian. He is best known for playing Adam Goodman in the Channel 4 comedy Friday Night Dinner and Will McKenzie in The Inbetweeners.

Early life

Bird was born in Guildford, Surrey as the third of four children of Graham Bird and Heather née Gage.

Bird was educated at Cranmore School, West Horsley, the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, and Queens' College, Cambridge, where he read English. At Cambridge, Bird was the President of the Footlights, the university's sketch and theatrical group.

Career

Early comedy career

While completing an MA in cultural and critical studies at Birkbeck College, Bird set up the sketch comedy group "The House of Windsor" with Joe Thomas (who plays Simon Cooper in The Inbetweeners) and Jonny Sweet They performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 2007 and in 2008 with a show called The Meeting, described as a site-specific comedy installation set in an actual boardroom, which received national media attention and a clutch of five-star reviews. Bird and Thomas were also regulars on series 1 and 2 of The Weekly Show, a podcast for Channel 4 Radio (2006-7).