User:SRAuthor/sandbox/Nik Coppin

Nicholas Audie Coppin (known as Nik Coppin) is a British stand-up comedian based in London, UK.

Career
Nik Coppin was born in Neasden, north London on the 10th August 1972. He attended Wykeham Primary School in Neasden and Neasden High School, before joining London Underground Limited in September 1989. London Underground Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Transport for London (TfL) and Coppin joined as a junior trainee on a Youth Training Scheme. In 1990 Coppin was appointed to signalman, working on the north end of the Metropolitan Line. In March 1998 Coppin made his first stage appearance as a stand-up comic at the Orchard Theatre in Dartford, as part of a comedy competition, sponsored by Hooch alcopops, and run in conjunction with The Comedy Store.

Shortly afterwards, he performed at the Belly Laughs Comedy Club in South Croydon, a gig organised and MC’d by American Elisabeth Charbonneau. Coppin began performing part-time at comedy clubs throughout London, juggling his career as a comedian with a part-time ticket office position on the both the Metropolitan and District Lines.

Coppin decided to turn full-time comedian in 2004 and embarked upon a series of shows at the Edinburgh Fringe, followed by a run of shows on The Comedy Bus and the Laughing Horse Comedy Gladiators.

In 2013, Coppin was ranked 12th in a book entitled 'The 100 Funniest Male Comedians of All Time' written by Alex Trott and Vadim Krantsky.

Coppin continues to tour the stand-up circuit at comedy events and festivals throughout the world including Brighton Fringe, Adelaide Fringe, Melbourne Comedy Festival, Perth Fringe World and the Edinburgh Fringe, as well as appearance at the Dubai Laughing Comedy Club, in Darwin, and in Malaysia, Thailand, Germany and New Zealand.

Coppin began working as a regular with Laughing Horse at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2004, and has performed there in a variety of shows every year until the Covid-19 pandemic cancelled the 2020 Festival. His style has been described as a comedian who "befriends the audience with his chummy charm" coupled with his "calm affability and genuine affection".

Amongst the highlights of Coppin's early career was his performance at the Jongleurs Comedy Club in Birmingham when he appeared on the bill alongside the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe comedy award winner Sarah Milliican, British comedian, television personality and host of the Big Breakfast Paul Tonkinson and Mark Maier.

Coppin's connection with Laughing Horse Comedy continued when he formed a partnership with Laughing Horse founder Alex Petty in 2014 called Laughing Panda Productions to host a series of comedy events at several Australia festivals.

Shows
As part of his tours around the comedy circuit, Coppin has created several different shows in the last twenty years. Some of these performances were at single festivals, whilst others have spanned several years in different countries. As well as his adult comedy events, Coppin is well known for his children's shows called Huggers where he introduces three children's performers from other events at each festival in a variety style show.

Comedy Workshops
Coppin was asked to host his first 'comedy workshop' in Australia at the Darwin Top End Comedy Festival in 2014, where he spent three days working with would-be comedian, helping them develop their skills in generating material, connecting with and performing to an audience, joke writing and editing. The workshop was then finished off with the new comedians taking to the stage at their first live event.

Continuing his partnership with Laughing Horse Comedy, in the last three years, Coppin has hosted comedy workshops in Britain, as well as his own workshops in Europe, Asia and throughout Australia.

Court Settlement
In late February 2012 Coppin was a guest on the Peter Goers Radio Show on state broadcaster ABC. Coppin (who is half English and half West Indian) said he had chosen to support the Essendon Bombers Australian Rules football team because the team (who play in black and red) were once nicknamed ‘the Blood-stained Niggers’ and now have more aboriginal players and fans than any other AFL team. Goers told him he was a racist and to “Get the fuck out of my studio!” A few days later, printed in Rupert Murdoch’s Sunday Mail newspaper in Australia, Peter Goers wrote a list of things to see and things to avoid at the Adelaide Fringe and gave Coppin “Minus Four Stars” as a “racist Fringe comedian”. Coppin took legal advice and began court proceedings against Peter Goers and Rupert Murdoch's newspaper the Australian Sunday Mail.

By September 2012 Coppin had reached an undisclosed out of court settlement with the defendents and the Sunday Mail printed an apology in Goers’ column:

"APOLOGY: On Sunday, March 4, in my column’s “What’s Not” section I referred to comedian Nik Coppin as “painfully unfunny racist Fringe comedian at the Austral Hotel: Minus four stars”. I acknowledge that my comments were false and made without foundation. In fact, I had not seen his show at the time I wrote my comments. I have no reason to believe that Nik Coppin is a racist or that his Fringe show contained racist material. I withdraw those comments without reservation and apologise for any hurt or embarrassment caused."

The following year Coppin returned to the Adelaide Fringe with a new show entitled "Nik Coppin Is Not Racist" introducing an anecdotal story about changing racist attitudes in Australia through the example of an AFL team and recounting the terrifying, rude and absurd racism he has encountered over the years from white and black people.

Football
Coppin is a self-confessed Arsenal FC supporter, and regularly contributes to online debates in newspapers and on television. Amongst others, he has featured in football debates in The Express and on Sky Sports Soccer Saturday.

Author
In June 2020 Coppin published his first book, entitled 'Nik Coppin's Comedy World'. The book is a collection of stories and anecdotes from his world tours, his life and his connections with fellow comedians and performers such as Alan Carr, Matt Price, Russell Brand and Cat Deeley. The foreword was written by self-proclaimed German Comedy Ambassador Henning Wehn.

Wehn stated "Nik's my best mate in comedy and one of the first people I met on the circuit. This book is a great insight into life on the road. Europe, Asia, Australia - Coppin knows his way around. Few people have travelled the comedy world more extensively than the man inexplicably dressed like an 8-year old: in Spider-Man t-shirt and baseball cap."

Movie Reviews
Given the amount of down-time that Coppin had between comedy festivals and his live shows Nik began to share his love of movies, and in particular the superhero genre, with his deconstruction of jokes and movie plots on social media. By mid-2018, Coppin had already compiled a large collection of movie reviews on his Facebook page when he was approached by Dom Robinson, owner and creator of the movie review website DVDfever. Robinson invited Coppin to submit more reviews to the website. His first published review was for the fourth film in the Predator series, a science-fiction anthology media franchise, The Predator. This was followed by Coppin's reviews for Avengers: Endgame, Spider-Man: Far from Home and several other superhero and action blockbusters.