Sean Lock

Sean Lock (22 April 1963 – 16 August 2021) was an English comedian and actor. He began his comedy career as a stand-up comedian. In 2000, Lock won the British Comedy Award, in the category of Best Live Comic, and was nominated for the Perrier Comedy Award. He was a team captain on the Channel 4 comedy panel show 8 Out of 10 Cats from 2005 to 2015, and on 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown from 2012 until his death in 2021.

Lock frequently appeared on stage, television and radio. His routines were often surreal and delivered in a deadpan style. He also wrote material for Bill Bailey, Lee Evans and Mark Lamarr. Lock was voted the 55th-greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups in 2007, and he was upgraded to 19th in the updated 2010 list. He was a frequent guest on other panel shows, including BBC's Have I Got News for You, QI and They Think It's All Over.

Early life

Lock was born in Chertsey, Surrey, on 22 April 1963, the youngest of four children. His father, Sidney, worked in the building industry; his mother, Mary (née McCreesh), was from Cullaville, County Armagh. Lock was raised in Woking, Surrey, where he attended St John the Baptist School.

During Lock's teenage years, he watched art-house films on BBC Two, and named Andrei Tarkovsky's 1979 science-fiction film Stalker as one that affected him greatly. In 1981, he left education with a grade E in A-level English. Afterwards, his father got him a job stripping concrete panels off buildings. After spending seven years as a labourer, he travelled, taking on different jobs. For six weeks, he worked on a French farm as a goat herder and worked on a kibbutz in Israel. During this period, he also worked as a toilet cleaner and a Department of Health and Social Security office worker. During his work as a labourer, he developed skin cancer.