Background and career
Timothy Mark Vine (born 4 March 1967) is an English comedian, actor, writer and presenter best known for his puns and other one-liners and his role on the TV sitcom Not Going Out (2006–2012, 2014). He has also released a number of stand-up comedy specials and written several joke books. From 2004 to 2014, Vine held the Guinness World Record for the most jokes told in an hour: each joke had to get a laugh from the audience to count towards the total, and he set the new record with 499 jokes. In both 2010 and 2014, he won the award for best joke at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and he was the runner-up for each of the three years between.
Timothy Mark Vine was born in the Cheam suburb of London on 4 March 1967, the son of Diana (née Tillett), a housewife and occasional doctor's receptionist, and Guy Vine (died 2018), a lecturer in civil engineering at North East Surrey College of Technology. He is the younger brother of broadcaster Jeremy Vine and the older brother of artist Sonya Vine. He was educated in Surrey, attending Lynton Prep in Ewell, Aberdour School in Burgh Heath, and Epsom College in Epsom.
Vine's stand-up act consists primarily of a series of quick-fire one-liners and puns, along with comedic songs and a bagful of props. Vine and a security guard from his office job in Croydon started doing open mic nights as a hobby. During 1991, Tim Vine regularly honed his routine at the Comedy Café in London, adding other clubs throughout 1992. He came second in the Hackney Empire New Act competition in 1993. Vine quit his job to go on tour as a support act for Boothby Graffoe. Vine became a regular on the London comedy circuit by 1994, trying a variety of comedy styles. He realised one-liners were a good way forward after the audience's positive reaction to his joke: "So I went to the doctors. He said, 'You've got hypochondria'. I said, 'Not that as well!'" Vine built up this repertoire, before making his first TV appearance on BBC1's Pebble Mill. In 1996, Vine met Lee Mack at the Comedy Lounge in Kingston upon Hull. Mack was competing in The Gong Show, where up to ten comedians try to last for a full five minute slot, hoping to beat the Gong and not get voted off by the public. Mack inadvertently did a couple of Vine's jokes, to which the audience shouted "Tim Vine". When Mack came off stage, he asked a man who Tim Vine was, and got the reply "He plays here quite a bit." The man he had asked was Tim Vine. The pair later worked together on The Sketch Show, Not Going Out and Let's Play Darts for Comic Relief. The comedian has appeared at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, with shows such as The Tim Vine Shambles and The Tim Vine Fiasco (1995) - which won him the Perrier Newcomer Award - then Tim Vine Flat Out (1998), I'm Vine Thanks and Tim Vine and the Minotaur (1999). In 2006, he had a large advertising hoarding erected featuring his name and image, with a small sub-heading "...is not appearing at this year's Edinburgh Festival." Vine appeared at the Pleasance Courtyard for the first two weeks of the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe performing a show entitled Punslinger.
In a BBC Radio Wales interview with Behnaz Akhgar (12 October 2021), Vine revealed that he had intended to perform a new stand-up show at the 2020 Edinburgh Fringe but Breeeep! was delayed until 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Vine released a CD entitled Tim Vine Edinburgh Festival Diary, recorded each day at the Fringe. The Breeeep! tour (2023) sold out at many venues. However, September 21's show was relocated after the original venue cancelled due to the 2023 United Kingdom reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete crisis. Many of Vine's jokes have been falsely attributed to Tommy Cooper, being in Cooper's style; the West End show about Cooper actually features some of Vine's jokes.
2005/2006 – Dandini in Cinderella (New Wimbledon Theatre) with Susan Hampshire, Richard Wilson, Naomi Wilkinson, John Barrowman, Peter Duncan. 2006/2007 – Silly Billy in Jack and the Beanstalk (Richmond Theatre) with John Challis, Sue Holderness, Aled Jones. 2009/2010 – Muddles in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Richmond Theatre). 2010/2011 – Jangles in Sleeping Beauty (Richmond Theatre) with Anita Dobson. 2012/2013 – Wishee Washee in Aladdin (Richmond Theatre). 2014/2015 – Buttons in Cinderella (New Wimbledon Theatre) with Linda Gray, Matthew Kelly, Wayne Sleep. 2016/2017 – Idle Jack in Dick Whittington (New Wimbledon Theatre) with Matthew Kelly, Arlene Phillips. 2019/2020 – Buttons in Cinderella (Fairfield Halls, Croydon) with Ore Oduba, Cat Sandion.
Vine plays the guitar, bass, piano and drums. He occasionally plays the drums at his church. He was in several bands, including alongside his brother Jeremy in The Flared Generation, which Smash Hits magazine described as "the most unfashionable punk band in the country. Vine has released three novelty music albums, Pretend Popstar - Fake Hits, Dance Floor Gridlock and Angus Crunch and the Nepali Flautist. Vine is a Elvis Presley fan and has been since his death in 1977; he has a picture of Presley in every room at his home. The megastar was Vine’s Specialist Subject on Celebrity Mastermind and his inspiration for performing to "Viva Las Vegas" on Comic Relief Does Fame Academy. In August 2019, Vine's Plastic Elvis tribute act was a sell-out at the Edinburgh Fringe. In May 2020, when the Eurovision Song Contest was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Vine competed in the Isolation Song Contest representing Romania with his home-filmed, self-composed entry "Room Mania". John Archer also made several appearances in shots from his own house. The event raised around £40,000 for the homeless charity Crisis, Refuge (which supports female domestic abuse survivors) and The Trussell Trust food banks.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
