Christopher John McCausland[1] (born 15 June 1977[2][3]) is a British actor and comedian. He is known to television audiences for his role as Rudi in the CBeebies show Me Too!. He regularly appears at comedy venues around the UK, including The Comedy Store. McCausland is blind due to retinitis pigmentosa.
McCausland first gave stand-up a go at a new act comedy night in Balham in July 2003. Within his first year of performing, he won the Jongleurs J2O Last Laugh competition, came runner up in the Laughing Horse New Act of The Year and placed third in Channel 4's So You Think You're Funny? competition.
Between 2005 and 2012, he took six stand-up shows to the Edinburgh Festival and in 2011 was awarded the Creative Diversity Award for comedy by a Channel 4-led panel of broadcasters which also included BBC, ITV and Sky. He has performed all over the world, including across Asia and the Middle East, and regularly travels the UK playing the country's top comedy clubs. He appeared on the BBC's Live at the Apollo on 4 January 2018 and hosted the show on 7 January 2022.[5]
Television
In 2014, McCausland fronted a national television advert for Barclays, promoting the benefits of their new talking cash machines. Also in 2014, he starred in the Jimmy McGovern drama series Moving On, alongside Anna Crilly and Neil Fitzmaurice. In 2012, he appeared alongside fellow comedians in Jimmy Carr's Comedians Special charity episode of Celebrity Deal or No Deal.
He appeared in three series of At The Comedy Store in 2008 for Paramount Comedy as well as in 2010 and 2012 for Comedy Central. In 2010, he featured in BBC One's end of year spoof news review, Unwrapped with Miranda Hart. In 2011, he appeared in ITV's series Stand-up Hero.
McCausland was also one of the principal characters in the CBeebies series Me Too!, playing Rudi the market trader. Filmed in 2006, it aired on CBeebies and internationally until April 2016. On 20 August 2018, he appeared in the long-running BBC soap opera EastEnders.
In February 2020, he appeared on an episode of 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown on Channel 4. Despite his poor eyesight, Chris scored highly throughout the episode, playing by memory alone, and even correctly guessed the difficult end of game "Countdown Conundrum" before the sighted panellists. During the show, presenter Jimmy Carr produced blindfolds for the other contestants and encouraged them to try playing without sight.
On 15 January 2021, he appeared on the BBC One show Would I Lie to You?[9]
In July 2022, Channel 4 announced McCausland would present a four-part travelogue series, provisionally titled The Wonders of the World I Can't See. The series aired in June and July 2023.[10][11]
