Actor and comedian Hugh Dennis is to be the star turn at The Courier Business Awards 2014.
The funnyman will host the glamorous event for 550 local business leaders at the Fairmont St Andrews Resort on November 14.
The Mock The Week panellist told The Courier he was looking forward to meeting east central Scotland’s most inspirational business people.
He said his own experience in the world of commerce — four years trying to sell deodorant while writing comedy sketches at the weekends — gave him huge respect for anyone who had the courage to forge their own path in life.
“Before I became whatever I am today, I worked for Unilever in their marketing department,” the star said. “For four years I made adverts for Lynx and all of these other fairly big products. I went to lots of corporate dinners as a guest or delegate and I feel at home at all these sort of thing.
“I really liked working for Unilever but Steve Punt came down to the Comedy Store and asked if I would write some stuff for this new Jasper Carrot show.
“Steve realised what an opportunity it was for us — this was the breakthrough we were after — but I was just thinking that ‘Live on a Saturday Night’ meant I could carry on working for Unilever on Lynx deodorant and so on.
“But when we did The Mary Whitehouse Experience it was on a Thursday and I knew I couldn’t take every Thursday off.
“By then they were going to send me to Milan or Tokyo to run Japanese or Italian deodorants and I had to make a choice.
“They gave me an 18-month sabbatical, and technically I am still on it. I have never actually left!”
The move into mainstream television with the Mary Whitehouse Experience made Hugh, now 52, a household name, and his popularity has been sustained through his team captain role on irreverent news panel show Mock The Week and as put-upon dad Pete Brockman in family sitcom Outnumbered.
The show came to a close after five hugely successful series earlier this year and Hugh is now progressing a number of new projects, including playing Toby in the hit sitcom Not Going Out starring Lee Mack.
But the satirist said a return to Scotland — where he holidayed as a child (once spending a summer making a raffia guitar strap on Mull) and where he filmed part of the Great British Countryside series with presenter Julia Bradbury — for The Courier Business Awards was a key event on his horizon for late 2014.
“I am really looking forward to it as I do genuinely think awards are really important recognition for businesses,” he said.
“In my profession it happens all the time — at the Baftas or Oscars you have the whole profession congratulating itself for everything it does— but actually psychologically it is a really good thing to do and I am very supportive.
“Running a small business is very, very hard but I always find it amazing what can be done with a really good idea and with real dedication.”
