The always impeccably dressed Paul Tompkins is one of the hardest-working men on the comedy scene and lucky for audiences, his innate sense of decency and manners is constantly being affronted, causing him to seesaw rapidly from affable observation to high-blood-pressure tirade with increasing intensity. Happily, the more irritated Paul gets with the details of day-to-day living, the more you laugh.
Audiences may remember Tompkins as one of the writers and cast members on HBO’s gold standard 90s sketch series Mr. Show, where he played a wide variety of characters, including a lie detector technician traumatically subjected to his own equipment, along with the occasional cop. He is also recognizable as the long-suffering Open Mic host in the Tenacious D shorts as well as the Pick of Destiny. Hysterical opening act Kristen Schaal plays Mel, the somewhat deranged, one-woman “fan-base” of the titular quirky New Zealand expat duo on HBO’s hit series Flight of the Conchords.
