Isobel Jane Suttie was born on August 11, 1978, in Kingston upon Hull. She is a stand-up comedian, writer, composer, musician and actress.
She is best known for playing the role of Dobby in the British sitcom Peep Show, and in 2013 won the golden Sony Radio Academy Award for her radio show Pearl and Dave.
Early Life[]
Isy was born in Hull to English mother and Scottish father, and raised in Matlock, Derbyshire. From an early age she expressed a desire to act and write. She began playing the guitar and writing songs at the age of twelve after she was refused saxophone lessons. She attended Highfields School in Matlock where her fellow students included Ben Ottewell, singer-songwriter from the Mercury Prize-winning indie-rock band Gomez.
Career[]
Isy trained as an actress at the Guildford School of Acting, graduating in 2000. In 2001 she composed and directed a score for Peter Weiss' play Marat/Sade at the Arcola Theatre in London. Isy began performing stand-up comedy in 2003, and her act normally consisted of music, stand-up and stories, either as herseolf or under the guise of a character.
Isy has written and appeared in many shows on BBC radio, including her own BBC Radio 4 show Isy Suttie's Love Letters. She is also a regular presenter of The Comedy Club on BBC Radio 4 Extra and has acted in two of Tim Key's radio shows.
For season 3 and 4, she wrote for the popular teenage drama Skins, under the guise of "comedy consultant."
At the 2005 Edinburgh Fringe, Isy was one of the acts in stand-up showcase The Comedy Zone. In 2006, she acted in Dannielle Ward's Take-a-Break Tales at The Pleasance with Neil Edmond and Emma Fryer. In 2007, she performed her debut solo stand-up show, Love Lost in the British Retail Industry, which she took to Sydney Arts Festival and on a UK tour in 2010/11, and in 2008 her second solo Edinburgh show The Suttie Show. She played psycho killer Sorrow in the revival of Danielle Ward and Martin White's cult musical Gutted at the Leicester Square Theatre for two performances in February and March 2011. She took her third solo stand-up show, Pearl and Dave, to Edinburgh in August 2011. She appeared at the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal in July 2012. Isy wrote a performed a 4 part series called Isy Suttie's Love Letters, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.
Isy occasionally duets with folk musician Gavin Osborn and supported Jim Bob on tour in 2010. Isy also appeared with Jim Bob for the fourth year of the Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People event at the Bloomsbury Theatre in December 2011. Isy appeared in the short film that accompanied the song God of Loneliness by Emmy the Great, alongside Shazad Latif of Spooks.
Isy was nominated for Best Female Newcomer at the 2008 British Comedy Awards and Female Breakthrough Artist at the 2011 British Comedy Awards. She was nominated for Funniest Woman in the 2010 Loaded magazine's Lafta Awards, which she won in 2011. She was nominated again in 2012. She was regional winner of the Daily Telegraph Young Jazz Competition for composition, winner of the Julian Slade Songwriting Competition and Chortle Awards best newcomer nominee. In 2013, the BBC Radio 4 version of Pearl and Dave won a Gold Sony Radio Academy Award.
She provides the voices for BBC One's Walk on the Wild Side in addition to voicing the character of Josie the Dog in Kristen Schaal and Kurt Braunohler's Penelope Princess of Pets. She provides voices for children's series The Revolting World of Stanley Brown.
Isy played a waitress called Kiki alongside Alan Davies in BBC Two's Whites, which aired in autumn 2010. She also made TV appearances in Holby City, as Mary Shelley in The Trouble with Love, as various characters in The Incredible Will and Greg, as Lianne in Rab C. Nesbitt, as a judge in Genie in the House and as a nurse in two episodes of Skins.
She has been on the UK team for the monthly potcast International Waters, hosted by Jesse Thorn of maximumfun.org. She appeared on episode at the end of March 2012, alongside Dan Antopolski.
In 2012, Isy voice-acted in the CBBC show The Cow That Almost Missed Christmas alongside Johnny Vegas. The show was a one-off animation which gave a unique interpretation of the Christmas Nativity seen through the eyes of a cow called Majorie, who Isy voiced.
She plays the regular character Esther in season 11 of Shameless, broadcast in 2013. In January 2013, she appeared in the ITV dramedy Great Night Out as Bev.
In August 2013, Isy appeared in the one-off revival episode of the television series Knightmare as Treguard's assistant Veruca/Daisy. The 26-minute episode was aired as part of YouTube's Geek Week celebration.
Isy appears in the S4C Welsh learners programme Hwb as a Welsh learner in a regular sketch called Y Wers Gymraeg. She was cast as IT geek Dobby in Peep Show in 2008, a role that she continues to play in 2013.
In 2014 she wrote an dstarred in a short film, The Best Night of Roxy's LIfe, alongside Philip Jackson and JJ Burnel of The Stranglers. The film tells the story of a Stranglers super fan, Rox, who meets JJ, her hero. The film was released in 2014.
In February and March 2014 she starred as Phyllis Pearsall, the creator of the A-Z map, in a new musical, The A-Z of Mrs P, which ran at Southwark Playhouse.
Personal Life[]
Isy is in a relationship with bilingual Welsh comedian Elis James. The couple lives in London.