NINIA BENJAMIN
Best-loved as one third of BBC’s award-winning hidden-camera comedy show 3 Non-Blondes, Ninia Benjamin has branched out on her own in stand-up and is already going down a storm. Described by one journalist as the "Comedy Assassin", Ninia Benjamin certainly takes no prisoners, but armed with a big smile, a lot of cheek and a huge amount of wit, she maims her audiences with mirth and then kills them with kindness. Exuding confidence and natural warmth, her performances are exuberance personified in a style first unveiled in the early 90's as one-half of the successful female comedy duo, M&N Society, who honed their talents on their home islands of Dominica and Jamaica before heading across the waters to wow punters in the UK and earn themselves the warm-up slot for the seminal BBC2 show The Real McKoy. As a solo act, female comic Ninia Benjamin is already wowing punters from east London to Edinburgh, having stormed the famous New Act of the Year competition at London's Hackney Empire and then done much the same for the Edinburgh festival. Ninia's talents don't stop at stand-up. She played the lead role in the record-breaking run of Waiting to Inhale at the Theatre Royal, Stratford, and Woman on Top at the Hackney Empire and also starred in a stage production of the life of Malcolm X as well as A Yorkshire Tragedy at London's prestiogious The Royal Court Theatre. On television, as well as the award-winning 3 Non-Blondes, she starred in the BBC Three drama Spinechillers and featured in Lenny Henry's BBC One show Len on the One. She also filmed a BBC Three show Gory Greek Gods in Greece in July 2004. She is also becoming a reality TV regular, appearing in Sky One’s Cirque Du Celebrity as both a contestant and a personal trainer for Kenzie and then winning BBC Three's Celebrity Scissorhands, both in 2007. She was one of the contestants in Celebrity Masterchef 2008 and has appeared on BBC 1's prime-time Saturday night game show Hole In The Wall on controversial dancer Anton de Beke's team. Top female stand-up Ninia Benjamin’s other TV appearances include Michael Barrymore's My Kind of People and BBC2's Black Briton and The Day The Changed My Life.