University of East London Homepage

UEL awards comedy national treasure, Lee Evans, doctorate of the Arts

Thursday 9 December 2010

 

Comedian Lee Evans was awarded an honorary doctorate of the Arts today by the University of East London at an event held at the Barbican, in central London.

The comedian, character actor and musician, first achieved national acclaim after winning the coveted Perrier Award at the 1993 Edinburgh festival. Since then his career has gone from strength to strength culminating in his Big UK tour in 2008, which filled arenas across the country usually reserved for multi-million selling rock bands. The DVD of the tour went on to sell over 1.3 million copies and remains in the top 10 comedy charts to this day.

His acting career has been equally successful with Lee appearing in a host of films from Something about Mary to the Magic Roundabout, as well as last year’s Doctor Who Easter special. He has also appeared in the award-winning West End productions, The Producers, Endgame and The Dumb Waiter.

In his citation he was described as ‘a role model to show graduates who are moving from education into the uncertain world of work, that they can grow and develop in just one career strand or change direction as and when they want to’ and that he should be ‘extremely proud of his entrepreneurial success’.

Lee responded to the honour: "I'm so proud to be among you. You all worked for this today, I'm just blagging!"

Notes to Editors

The University of East London (UEL) is a global learning community with over 28,000 students from over 120 countries world-wide. Our vision is to achieve recognition, both nationally and internationally, as a successful and inclusive regional university proud of its diversity, committed to new modes of learning which focus on students and enhance their employability, and renowned for our contribution to social, cultural and economic development, especially through our research and scholarship. We have a strong track-record in widening participation and working with industry.

Information for screenreader users:

For a general description of these pages and an explanation of how they should work with screenreading equipment please follow this link: Link to general description

For further information on this web site’s accessibility features please follow this link: Link to accessibility information