Simon Munnery, also known as his characters "Alan Parker: Urban Warrior" and "The League Against Tedium", is an English comedian. He performs mainly to an alternative audience but has pierced the mainstream both with his BBC Radio 1 show in 1997 and his BBC2 television series Attention Scum! in 2001. His stand-up is often satirical and political and almost always surreal. Munnery's experimental style is reflected in his makeshift, often elaborate props. As "The League" he often wore a hat crafted from a kettle, epaulets that contained working model tanks, and shoes covered in roses. In Buckethead he played a character who performed the entire show with a metal bucket over his head. Early life Born in Middlesex, Munnery grew up in Bedmond and was educated at Watford Grammar School for Boys, where he earned four A Levels. He read natural sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge but soon lost interest in science and joined the Footlights. In 1987, he became vice-president with Peter Bradshaw as president. After graduating with "a very high third", he did various menial jobs before making his big break into comedy. He has described praise of his work as implying his work occupies a place between "unfunny comedy" and "shit art". Munnery had a short-lived career as a video game programmer. His most famous title was a version of Asteroids for the Commodore International VIC-20 (a game that Jeff Minter once described as a "pile of wank"). He also authored several games for the ZX81 (Road Race, Breakout and Space Invaders) and the ZX Spectrum. The VIC-20 games he wrote were Asteroids, Cosmiads and Scramble. Career Stand-up comedy While at university, Munnery took part in a stand-up double-act called God and Jesus with Stephen Cheeke. He also worked (along with Steve Coogan, Patrick Marber, Richard Herring and Stewart Lee) at the Edinburgh Festival in a piece called The Dum Show. Munnery was brought to the attention of a comedy community as the compere of a post-alternative comedy cabaret called Cluub Zarathustra performed originally in London and later at the Edinburgh Festival. Cluub Zarathustra featured Stewart Lee, Kevin Eldon, Sally Phillips, Johnny Vegas, Julian Barratt, Richard Herring, Roger Mann, Jason Freeman and the music of Richard Thomas and Loré Lixenberg. A television pilot was made of Cluub Zarathustra for Channel 4 in 1996, but was never broadcast. It became the subject of a book by Robert Wringham