Stuart Ashen

Stuart Clive Ashen (born 16 December 1976), commonly known by his online alias Ashens (/ˈæʃənz/ ASH-ənz), is a British comedian, critic, animator, actor, author, producer and online reviewer of various products; his reviews usually include distinctive toys, video games and food. Starting such videos in his distinctive style on YouTube from 2006, the items he humorously reviews are often of low quality (most notably from Poundland), or are poor knockoffs of well-received or well-known products, which he tends to endearingly refer to as "tat". As of April 2020, his main YouTube channel has garnered 1.47 million subscribers.

Stuart Clive Ashen was born in Heartsease Estate, Norwich and attended Heartsease High School. He previously worked for PC World and Norwich Union. His mother died of cancer when he was eight years old.

Ashen made his first television appearance on a 2008 episode of Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, where he played a cameo role as Mr. Noseybonk, a character from the 80s BBC children's show Jigsaw.

Ashen guest starred on The Armstrong & Miller Show for their "The Node" segment in October 2009. In early 2009, Ashen also released a very limited edition DVD anthology dubbed Ashenthology, containing a selection of his early videos, as well as some unseen videos and animations, some of these videos were later released on his second Youtube Account; extraashens.

In 2010, Ashen created the series Ashen's Tech Dump for BBC Online Comedy. In 2011, Ashen co-starred alongside Karen Hayley in another BBC Online Comedy series Back Space. The next year, he starred as himself in The Proxy, a sci-fi webseries produced by ChannelFlip in partnership with Dell Alienware. The series took eight days to film, consists of 10 episodes and won a Marketing Week "Engage Award" in the "Gaming and Entertainment" section.

Ashen released the book Fifty-Thousand Shades of Grey on 23 September 2012; it parodies the popular erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey. The title is literal, as the book simply consists of the phrase "Shades of Grey" repeated 50,000 times. A 25-part audiobook of the parody was recorded and released on YouTube.

In 2013, Ashen, along with Emma Blackery, Dan Howell (Daniel Howell) and Phil Lester (AmazingPhil), starred as a contestant in a remake of the 1980s TV show Knightmare during the YouTube Geek Week event.

As of April 2020, Ashen has produced 819 videos, has 1.47 million subscribers to his primary YouTube channel Ashens and over 472 million video views. His secondary channel, used mainly for DVD extra-style clips, along with an annual look with Daniel Hardcastle at a series of Advent calendars throughout December, has over 300,000 subscribers and over 37 million video views. In addition to his own channels he has also produced videos for other YouTube channels, which included "The Multiverse", a geek-themed channel controlled by ChannelFlip.

Ashens and the Quest for the GameChild

Ashen wrote and starred in Ashens and the Quest for the GameChild, a feature film released in August 2013, for YouTube's "Geek Week". The film also stars Warwick Davis and Robert Llewellyn, and was produced by the multi-channel network ChannelFlip, in association with The Multiverse. The film was partially paid for through crowdfunding website Indiegogo with contributions totalling US$73,690 at the end of the month, which comprised 41% of the US$180,000 budget. As of June 2016 it has been viewed over a million times on YouTube. A remastered and slightly extended edition of the movie was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 14 July 2014. On 2 July 2018, the full film was released on his YouTube channel.

Ashens and the Polybius Heist

In 2016, Ashen confirmed a sequel to Ashens and the Quest for the GameChild at a fan screening. In July 2018 Ashen created another Indiegogo campaign for the sequel titled, Ashens and the Polybius Heist. By the time funding was closed, the project earned over US$195,000 from over 4,000 backers. On 9 May 2019 Ashen announced the principal photography was wrapped. On May 5 2020, it was announced on the official Twitter account for the film, that The Gaming Muso; a fellow Youtuber, and musician would be performing the opening theme tune for the film.

Published works

In November 2015 Ashen released the book Terrible Old Games You've Probably Never Heard Of, a collection of textual reviews of poor retro games, released through the Unbound crowdfunding platform. The book reached its funding target in 12 hours.

On 24 February 2017 Ashen announced a sequel to Terrible Old Games You've Probably Never Heard Of, titled Attack of the Flickering Skeletons: More Terrible Old Games You've Probably Never Heard Of, again through Unbound, was released on 2 November 2017.

As of 2013, Ashen lives in his hometown of Norwich. He has a doctorate in psychology, but claims to have never professionally worked in the field.

In addition to his YouTube channel, Ashen has maintained an active public Twitter presence for years, where he posts about various subjects ranging from his announcements for his YouTube channel to personal thoughts, while his personal website has been inactive since 2016.

Ashen has criticized the veracity of this Wikipedia article and the site in general, saying that it has listed untrue statements about him; he wrote in 2017, "[my article] used to claim I was a spokesman for the British Egg Council".