Strap in, boys and girls, because we’ve got a treat for you: John Oliver has been cool enough to participate in an interview with us here at No Fact Zone!

Most of you know John from The Daily Show, of course, but here’s a quick history of some of his career highlights for those of you who might just be getting familiar with his work. Since graduating from Cambridge University (where he was part of the famed Footlights club), John honed his stand-up skills at venues like the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, appeared on Mock the Week, co-wrote (with Andy Zaltzman and Chris Addison) the hysterical radio series “The Department”, recorded a stand-up special for Comedy Central, co-hosted the Radio 4 show “Political Animal” (with Andy again), did voiceover work for BBC America, lent his face to shows like Important Things with Demetri Martin, Community and The Love Guru and brought his dulcet British tones to audiobooks like The Wordy Shipmates and Things I’ve Learned From Women Who’ve Dumped Me. He has a new stand-up series coming up for Comedy Central, a blind script deal (with Daily Show producer Rory Albanese) for Paramount and you’d better be listening to him weekly in “The Bugle” on the TimesOnline, which he co-writes and performs with the hilarious Andy Zaltzman.

John also does stand-up shows everywhere (he’s performing at Comix tonight, actually), and you can, of course, catch him regularly on The Daily Show, where he faces off against boss Jon Stewart with verbal gems like “oiga boiga“.

Anyone who reads this blog knows we love John here at NFZ, so you know we’re excited to bring this to you. Without further ado: John Oliver!

You are credited both as a writer and a correspondent on The Daily Show. How often do you find yourself writing pieces that you will be delivering in more or less your own voice, and how does that compare to writing for your colleagues? Are some people easier to write for than others? Do you generally have your own “take” on a given topic, or are ideas generated jointly, then polished by individuals?

For correspondent ‘chats’, ideas are generally generated jointly, and then two writers will be assigned to write up a first pass at a script. If I am the correspondent in question, I’ll probably be one of those people. To be honest, it was always much more fun to write for Riggle. That was a process of working out not so much what we could make him say, as what we could make him wear. The Mad Max outfit was a good one – bare midriff and lots of shoulder spikes. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he put it on for the first time. It was a mixture of deep shame and even deeper pride.

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